REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

,790     . 


Accession  No.     8.304  JL     • 


How  to  Study 


The  "How"   Series 

By  Amos  R.  Wells 

<£ 

How  to  Play 
How  to  Work 
How  to  Study 


How  to  Study 


By  AMOS  R.  WELLS 


United  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor 
Boston  and  Chicago 


Copyright,  1900, 

by  the 
UNITED  SOCIETY  OF  CHRISTIAN  ENDEAVOR 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  FOLKS  THAT  HAVE  GRADUATED    .  .       7 

II.  THE  BOOKS  ON  THE  SUBJECT      .  .         1 1 

III.  THE  GOOD  OF  PENCIL-TABLETS      .  .16 

IV.  How  TO  " TAKE"  LECTURES     .  .         23 
V.  CRAM           .         .         .         .         .  -31 

VI.  PER  CENTUM    .         .         .         .  .         40 

VII.  CONQUERING  THE  EXAMINATION  BUGBEAR,  46 

VIII.  STUDYING  ON  BUSINESS  PRINCIPLES  .     50 

IX.  MIDNIGHT  OIL           .         .         .  .         54 

X.  WASTING  BRAINS           .         .         .  .     58 

XI.  WHAT  Is  UNDER  YOUR  HEAD?  .         62 

XII.  THE  LESSON  SIMPSON  LEARNED     .  .     65 

XIII.  THE  ETHICS  OF  QUOTATION  MARKS  .         69 

XIV.  How   SCHOLARS    MAY   IMPROVE   THEIR 

TEACHERS         .         .         .         .  -75 

XV.  PUT  YOUR  PLAY  INTO  YOUR  WORK  .         83 

XVI.  GET  ONE  DAY'S  WORK  AHEAD      .  .     86 

XVII.  ABSORBING  INFORMATION   ...         89 

XVIII.  PUTTING  ONE'S  MIND  ON  IT          .  .     95 

XIX.  MEMORY-TRAINING    .         .         .  .103 

5 


83041 


6  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XX.  COIN  OF  THE  REALM     .  .         .         .107 

XXL  MY  "  EVER-READY  "          .  .         .       in 

XXII.  THE  FINISHING  TOUCH  .         .         .   115 

XXIII.  THE  CLUE  IN  THE  LABYRINTH  .         .       121 

XXIV.  WHY  ARE  You  STUDYING ?  .         .         .127 


HOW  TO  STUDY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FOLKS  THAT  HAVE  GRADUATED. 

O  you  know  what  the  word  "gradu- 
ate "  has  come  to  mean  ?  Ask  a 
fond  father,  whose  son  has  just  re- 
ceived a  diploma  from  high  school, 
academy,  or  college,  what  the  word  "gradu- 
ate" signifies  and  he  will  say,  "Why,  he's 
through  !  "  Through  !  As  if  education  were 
a  Great  Dismal  Swamp,  and  the  lad  had  just 
scrambled  out  to  firm  land  again  ! 

A  far  different  idea  lies  hidden  in  the  noble 
word,  "  graduate," — an  idea  of  the  vast  hill  of 
learning,  broadly-  based  on  the  common  world 
of  everyday  things,  and  rising  by  fair  terrace 
after  fair  terrace,  until  it  reaches  that  golden 
cloud  which  hides  from  mortal  eyes  the  throne 
of  God  !  To  "  graduate,"  to  receive  a  "  de- 
gree," is  to  ascend  only  one  step  toward  the 
summit.  There  are  many  grades  up  to  which 

7 


8  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

we  must  graduate.  It  is  a  hill  of  many  de- 
grees, this  hill  of  learning ;  and  what  are  we 
to  think  of  people  who  say  of  a  graduate, 
"  He's  through  "  ? 

Of  course  I  do  not  know  how  many  novels 
you  have  read ;  but  you  are  aware  that  before 
the  last  page  of  the  novel  the  heroine  is  very 
likely  to  say,  "  Oh,  Orlando  !  You  can  never 
have  loved  me  at  all,  or  else  you  would  love 
me  forever."  The  heroine  may  be  right :  she 
probably  is ;  but,  at  any  rate,  this  lover's  sen- 
timent is  true  for  the  student.  It  may  be  said 
safely  that,  with  few  exceptions,  the  man  or 
the  woman  who  has  ceased  studying  has  never 
really  studied  at  all.  O,  I  suppose  there  may 
be  backsliders  among  students  as  well  as  among 
Christians  ;  and  yet,  as  I  would  suspect  the 
genuineness  of  the  original  conversion  of  a 
backslider  from  Christianity,  so  I  have  my 
serious  doubts  whether  a  man  who  is  not  still 
a  student  ever  was  a  student. 

I  hope  you  do  not  consider  this  comparison 
an  irreverent  one.  I  assure  you  that  it  is  very 
far  from  that.  To  the  true  student,  study  has 
much  of  the  sacredness  of  religion.  He  enters 
a  library  with  as  much  awe  as  if  it  were  a 
cathedral.  He  feels  himself  called  to  study 
just  as  really  as  ever  a  preacher  was  called  to 
preach.  He  enters  upon  his  work  with  as  true 


FOLKS  THAT  HAVE  GRADUATED.  9 

a  consecration  as  any  bishop's.  A  human 
mind  that  has  once  felt  the  rush  of  solemn 
pride  at  first  sight  of  a  new  truth  will  always 
be  hungry  for  more  moments  like  that ;  and 
the  reason  why  so  many  graduates  are 
"  through  "  is  because  they  have  never  really 
begun  to  study  and  think  for  themselves. 

Let  me  ask  you  a  ridiculous  question.  How 
would  you  feel  if  with  a  magician's  wand  I 
should  suddenly  annihilate  your  body,  and 
leave  you,  my  reader,  sitting  before  this  book, 
an  incorporeal  mind  ?  Would  you  be  perfectly 
comfortable,  or  would  your  mind  go  feeling 
after  your  body  as  the  soldier's  mind  gropes 
after  his  buried  limb  ?  Would  you  cry  out 
for  hands  to  sew  with,  and  for  pockets  to  put 
some  money  in,  and  for  fingers  to  clutch  the 
money  ?  Such  a  transformation  is  coming 
some  day,  is  it  not,  to  all  of  us  ;  but  it  hardly 
matters  to  the  student.  His  mind  is  not  afraid 
to  be  alone.  Trained  by  earnest  study,  exer- 
cised in  wide  reading,  strengthened  by  hard 
thinking,  his  mind,  his  spirit,  has  come  to 
seem  to  him  what  it  really  is,  the  only  endur- 
ing part  of  him. 

But  these  poor  people  who  have  graduated, 
and  got  through  with  study,  and  out  among 
the  dollars  and  dimes,  the  stitches  and  ditches, 
the  saws  and  the  ledgers, — what  will  they, 


10  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

what  will  they  do  on  that  great  Commence- 
ment Day,  that  commencement  of  a  life  of 
spirit,  of  thought,  of  study,  with  dimes, 
stitches,  and  ledgers  left  out  ?  Money  can  do 
vast  good.  Brawny  arms  and  deft  fingers  are 
a  nobleman's  title.  Skill  with  machinery, 
cleverness  at  carving,  shrewdness  in  sowing 
wheat — these  are  well  worth  striving  for. 
But  on  that  Commencement  Day  when  we 
must  all  graduate  from  the  flesh,  how  pitiable 
will  seem  the  shrewdest  millionaire  who  got 
through  studying  long  ago,  beside  his  poorest 
neighbor  whose  mind  has  been  taught  to 
think,  whose  heart  has  been  taught  to  feel ! 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   BOOKS   ON   THE   SUBJECT. 

BIBLIOMANIAC  is  a  man  who,  if 
he  had  to  choose  between  getting 
the  ideas  in  a  book  and  getting  the 
book  itself,  would  say,  "  Give  me  the 
book."  This  is  silly  enough,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, many  original  minds  have  been  spoiled 
because  their  owners  have  not,  before  begin- 
ning their  studies,  gathered  the  books  on  the 
subject. 

Some  people  are  so  bent  on  being  original 
that  they  hardly  dare  look  into  a  book.  Not 
being  instructed  in  other  men's  work,  they  are 
continually  cackling  over  ideas  that  other 
brains  have  hatched  out  long  ago,  and  stum- 
bling at  obstructions  that  every  one  else  knows 
how  to  get  around.  They  think  that  original- 
ity consists  in  doing  things  themselves,  whereas 
it  really  consists  in  doing  things  that  no  one 
else  has  done  for  us.  The  wise  student,  seeing 
the  infinity  of  matters  to  be  learned,  is  only 
too  glad  to  study  all  he  can  by  proxy.  He 
reads  greedily  the  books  on  the  subject. 
11 


12  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

I  well  remember  the  boys  of  several  arith- 
metics in  the  public  schools — bright  fellows 
who  would  come  to  me  at  recess  or  nooning's 
with  "  sums  "  from  Greenleaf  or  other  old-time 
text-books  fished  out  from  the  attic.  I  well 
remember  the  boys  of  several  geologies  at  col- 
lege, whose  recitations  showed  them  as  famil- 
iar with  Dana  and  Winchell  and  Geikie  and 
Lyell  as  with  Le  Conte.  I  remember  these 
young  fellows  because  they  are  making  their 
mark  now  in  the  world.  They  are  well-read 
lawyers,  doctors  of  more  than  one  prescrip- 
tion, teachers  who  hold  life-certificates,  farm- 
ers who  can  raise  more  than  one  cereal. 

Students  forget  that  they  are  studying  text- 
books  only.  They  make  their  one  text-book 
the  whole  sermon.  To  be  sure,  an  old  maxim 
bids  us  beware  of  the  man  of  one  book.  He 
will  be  so  thoroughly  familiar  with  it,  the  idea 
is,  that  he  will  be  an  ugly  customer  to  meet  in 
an  argument.  But  that  maxim  is  false,  like  so 
many  others.  The  truth  is,  that  you  never 
can  know  one  book  until  you  have  become  ac- 
quainted with  many,  on  the  same  subject. 
The  other  books,  with  their  new  ways  of  put- 
ting things,  will  be  sure  to  change  your  opin- 
ion of  the  first  book. 

Besides,  reading  the  new  book  will  add  to 
your  wisdom,  even  if  it  contains  nothing  new. 


THE  BOOKS  ON  THE  SUBJECT.  13 

Indeed,  you  should  read  new  books  on  an  old 
subject  more  to  gain  the  old  facts  and  ideas, 
than  new  ones.  Do  you  know  how  facts  be- 
come friends?  In  the  same  way  as  people. 
Friendship  with  a  man  springs,  not  from  one 
meeting,  but  from  frequent  contact,  in  streets, 
shops,  churches,  crowds,  and  alone.  Facts  and 
ideas  also  become  our  friends  only  as  we  meet 
them  in  different  kinds  of  type,  strange  covers, 
new  garbs  of  language,  and  at  unexpected 
times. 

t)f  course  I  do  not  mean  that  you  are  to 
read  with  equal  thoroughness  everything  you 
can  find  on  the  subject,  whether  it  be  weighty 
or  trivial.  Part  of  the  advantage  of  the  habit 
I  am  advocating  is  the  sense  it  will  give  you 
of  proportionate  values,  and  the  drill  it  will 
give  you  in  the  sublime  art  of  skimming. 
Often  the  knowledge  of  where  certain  facts 
are  to  be  found  is  all  you  can  carry  away  from 
the  reading  of  a  book  on  your  subject;  this 
knowledge,  however,  is  no  mean  acquisition. 

"But,"  some  one  may  ask,  "after  all  this 
parallel  reading  will  not  my  mind  be  too  sated 
for  any  original  work  ? "  No.  Most  minds 
are  like  those  old-time  pumps  into  which  you 
must  pour  water  to  start  them.  To  me  a  row 
of  authorities  with  whom  I  have  been  hobnob- 
bing on  a  matter  is  tremendous  inspiration  to 


14  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

go  to  work  and  do  something  worthy  of  the 
company  I  have  been  in.  It  is  a  great  blun- 
der to  suppose  that  any  head  can  be  too  full 
for  originality. 

I  hear,  too,  the  wail  of  the  lazy  man :  "  Oh, 
the  time,  and  oh,  the  trouble,  to  lift  about 
these  huge  atlases,  encyclopaedias,  dictionaries, 
and  gazetteers!"-  I  have  nothing  to  say  to 
you,  Master  Wilted,  except  that  everything 
good  is  made  of  time  and  trouble.  But  indeed 
you  will  find,  if  you  make  the  experiment,  that 
after  reading  one  book  on  any  subject  it  is 
twice  as  easy  to  read  the  second,  four  times  as 
easy  to  read  the  third,  and  sixty-four  times  as 
easy  to  read  the  seventh. 

Still  one  more  objector,  and  this  time  it  is 
Master  Economy.  "  What !  "  he  cries,  "  buy 
three  text-books  instead  of  one,  and  whenever 
I  travel  anywhere,  or  go  a-fishing,  or  buy  a 
horse,  or  invest  in  a  mortgage,  I  must  pur- 
chase volumes  on  these  subjects  ?  "  No,  Mas- 
ter Economy,  I  did  not  say  that ;  and  do  not 
need  to,  in  these  days  of  free  libraries.  A 
standard  encyclopaedia  should  be  yours,  and 
will  give  you  riches  of  suggestion.  So  will 
dictionaries,  those  fascinating  tomes.  Besides, 
nowadays  books  are  so  cheap  that  we  are 
almost  hired  to  take  them  off  the  dealer's 
hands;  and  these  cheap  books  are  not  cheap 


THE  BOOKS  ON  THE  SUBJECT.  15 

in  quality,  but  standard  works  in  all  depart- 
ments of  literature.  And  if  yqu  lack  all  these 
resources,  then  remember  that  it  is  no  disgrace 
to  borrow,  provided  you  return  uninjured  what 
you  borrow.  The  places  are  few  in  these 
United  States  where  any  one  may  not  get  full, 
overflowing  information  on  almost  any  sub- 
ject, if  he  will  but  reach  out  after  it. 

Have  you  ever  made  rock  candy  ?  You  take 
the  hot  water  and  stir  in  sugar  until  the  liquid 
is  saturated.  Then  you  hang  a  string  in  the 
middle,  and  let  the  liquid  cool.  Come  back 
the  next  day,  and  you  have  a  mass  of  most 
beautiful  crystals  clustered  about  the  string. 
One  of  the  most  fruitful  methods  of  studying 
is  precisely  this  of  saturating  your  mind  with 
facts  and  thoughts,  and  then  letting  down  a 
string  and  fishing  for  crystals. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   GOOD   OF   PENCIL-TABLETS. 

ijHATEVER  books  the  student  may 
have,  there  is  one  book  which  he 
must  use  in  studying  any, subject: 
that  is  the  pencil-tablet.  It  is  not 
many  years,  I  think,  since  some  Yankee  hero, 
who  should  be  honored  with  a  lofty  monu- 
ment, conceived  the  beneficent  idea  of  fasten- 
ing loose  sheets  of  paper  together  with  glue, 
giving  them  a  pasteboard  stiffening,  and  send- 
ing them  forth  to  dwell  at  the  right  hand  of 
every  scholar.  No  arithmetician  can  calculate 
how  much  this  little  rough-and-ready  contriv- 
ance has  helped  the  student  world.  Pencil- 
tablets  have  taught  brain-workers  the  close 
connection  between  lead-pencils  and  knowl- 
edge. They  have  shown  us  how  easily  and 
rapidly  the  littles  grow  to  the  "  mickle  "  when 
there  is  a  place  for  their  ready  reception  and 
accumulation.  In  fact,  pencil-tablets  are  the 
savings-banks  of  thought. 

Do  you  know  the  easiest,  swiftest,  and  most 
thorough  way  of  studying  almost  any  lesson  ? 

16 


THE  GOOD   OF  PENCIL-TABLETS.  17 

It  is  this.  Sit  down  with  text-book  and  tab- 
let, and  proceed  to  report  the  lesson.  You 
know  what  the  reporter  does, — all  but  the  few 
who  make  verbatim  reports ;  he  gets  the  facts 
in  the  case.  As  bulldog  to  the  throat  of  growl- 
ing bulldog,  so  directly  does  he  grip  the  vital 
points  of  a  matter,  jot  them  dcjwn,  and  let  the 
others  go.  Your  genuine  reporter  can  sum 
up  a  page  in  a  sentence,  and  a  sentence  in  a 
word. 

Now  this  reportorial  knack  is  hard  to  ac- 
quire, but  of  the  greatest  value  to  the  student. 
It  is  of  value  for  four  reasons.  In  the  first 
place,  for  the  student,  as  well  as  for  the  re- 
porter, it  is  absolutely  essential  to  get  at  any 
rate  the  gist  of  things.  The  gist  of  things  is 
the  skeleton  on  which  they  hang ;  it  is  what 
gives  backbone,  solidity,  to "  facts  and  ideas. 
A  student  who  does  not  know  how  to  take 
notes  will  read  an  entire  paragraph  with  anx- 
ious attention  to  its  details,  and  miss  utterly 
the  one  fact  or  thought  to  present  which  the 
paragraph  was  written,  about  which  the  para- 
graph hangs.  The  reportorial  student  will  re- 
member more  details  than  the  other  will,  but 
he  will  do  it  by  consciously  remembering  only 
the  nuclear  notion,  and  letting  that  draw  all 
its  dependencies  with  it.  Set  an  unskilled 
man  to  sketch  a  puppy,  and  he  will  painfully 


18  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

insert  every  curl,  every  dark  spot,  every  swell- 
ing of  every  muscle;  and  then  he  will  not 
have  the  puppy,  but  only  a  splotch  on  the 
paper.  Now  comes  the  shrewd  artist,  and 
curves  his  pencil  easily  about,  once  or  twice, 
making  a  few  sharp  strokes  between,  and  a 
genuine,  live  puppy  fairly  barks  from  the 
paper  and  wags  his  tail.  That  is  how  this 
note-taking  method  of  studying  lessons  helps 
the  student :  it  enables  him  to  draw  a  living 
outline  of  the  lesson's  truths. 

Indeed,  a  set  of  well-taken  "notes  on  a  sub- 
ject ought  to  be  very  much  like  a  picture.  A 
picture  differs  from  a  written  description,  you 
know,  in  its  power  of  flashing  the  scene  upon 
you  as  a  whole,  not  by  a  slow  succession  of 
touches.  If  you  will  make  your  notes  very 
brief, — mere  suggestive  words  and  phrases, — 
and  if  you  will  write  them  almost  in  the  fashion 
of  a  diagram,  with  underscorings  showing  to 
the  eye  the  portions  of  leading  importance; 
and  if  you  will  write  in  a  small,  compact,  and 
exceedingly  plain  script,  then  your  page  of 
notes  will  be  a  half -picture  of  the  lesson,  and 
will  dwell  in  your  memory  much  as  a  picture 
does. 

Besides,  the  mere  act  of  writing  is  a  marvel- 
ous assistant  to  the  memory.  It  is  a  general 
principle  that  anything  is  better  remembered 


THE  GOOD   OF  PENCIL- TABLETS.  19 

if  you  can  associate  some  act  with  it.  Pos- 
sibly that  is  why  in  the  Middle  Ages  they 
whipped  boys  to  make  them  remember  their 
lessons.  A  very  little  energy  of  the  body 
often  saves  much  labor  of  the  mind,  and  even 
mechanical  copying  of  the  lesson  would  be  of 
great  assistance  in  learning  it. 

But  this  vividness  of  mental  impression  to 
which  all  writing  contributes  is  vastly  in- 
creased in  value  by  judicious  note-taking,  be- 
cause of  the  sense  of  proportion  which  this 
condensation  cultivates.  The  blind  man,  with 
his  vision  half  restored,  saw  "men  as  trees 
walking  "  ;  and  many  a  student  never  passes 
this  stage  of  mental  vision.  He  sees  mole- 
hills as  mountains,  and  mountains  as  mole- 
hills ;  he  sees  fundamentals  as  incidentals,  and 
mere  by-the-ways  as  essentials.  Brief  notes, 
condensed  upon  a  single  sheet  of  paper,  show 
us  the  subject  spread  out  before  us  in  its  true  re- 
lations and  proportions,  like  a  bird's-eye  view 
from  a  balloon. 

When  you  would  master  a  lesson,  then,  take 
careful,  wise  notes  upon  it,  as  if  you  were  re- 
porting an  address.  This,  at  first,  will  be 
slower  than  the  ordinary  method,  but  a  little 
practice  will  marvelously  shorten  the  time ; 
and,  from  the  start,  the  time  will  really  be 
shorter  on  the  whole,  because  of  the  perma- 


20  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

nence  of  your  grasp  of  your  knowledge.  Most 
of  our  modern  text-books  facilitate  and  sug- 
gest this  method  of  study,  by  printing  in 
heavy  type  a  brief  statement  of  its  subject- 
matter  at  the  beginning  of  every  paragraph. 

Yet  these  notes  will  be  nothing  but  a  well- 
drawn  sketch,  after  all,  unless  you  think  them 
over.  A  review  will  transform  them  into  a 
completed  picture.  As  you  read  over  your 
page  of  notes  for  the  first  time,  some  words 
will  fail  to  suggest  thoughts,  some  figures  will 
fail  to  suggest  facts,  and  you  must  go  back  to 
the  original  again.  Keep  this  up,  doing  it 
many  times,  if  necessary,  until  every  word  and 
phrase  of  your  skeleton  outline  has  been 
clothed  with  the  flesh  of  a  vivid  conception. 
Then  your  lesson  is  mastered. 

A  volume  might  be  written  on  the  relation 
between  pencil-tablets  and  wisdom.  Let  me 
content  myself  with  a  few  additional  hints. 

Pencil-tablets  can  make  essay-writing  a  de- 
light. My  first  step,  when  I  wish  to  write  an 
essay,  is  to  arm  myself  with  a  tablet  which  fits 
the  pocket.  Then  comes  the  campaign  for 
notions.  On  the  street,  about  my  work,  from 
conversations  with  friends,  on  solitary  walks, 
in  church,  Sunday-school,  or  lecture-room, — 
everywhere,  hints  on  my  chosen  topic  are  fly- 
ing around,  and  my  tablet  is  the  net  which 


THE  GOOD   OF  PENCIL-TABLETS.  21 

snares  them.  It  is  astonishing,  as  is  often  re- 
marked, how  full  the  world  is  of  thoughts  for 
any  one  who  is  prepared  to  think  them.  You 
know,  do  you  not,  what  the  wise  men  have 
learned  about  consumption?  They  have  dis-- 
covered  that  it  is  caused  by  an  ugly  little — 
wondrously  little — plant,  which  floats  about 
in  the  air,  and  is  always  ready  to  settle  down 
and  set  up  its  poisonous  growth  in  any  body 
which  by  special  weakness  is  made  ready  to 
contract  the  disease.  In  just  that  way  men 
can  contract  ideas, — by  getting  ready  for 
them.  Therefore,  carry  a  pencil-tablet.  After 
the  tablet  has  caught  its  load  of  ideas,  the 
essay  is  virtually  written.  You  have  only  to 
sort  the  ideas  and  dress  them. 

It  is  well  to  have  many  of  these  tablets ;  as, 
one  for  queries,  such  as  words  about  whose 
meaning,  spelling,  or  pronunciation  we  are  un- 
certain ;  one  for  points  to  be  incorporated  in 
letters  to  friends,  thus  saving  time  on  a  second 
letter  after  the  first  is  written ;  one  for  essay- 
themes  and  notions ;  one  for  facts  in  regard  to 
your  studies.  And  it  is  well,  too,  to  have 
these  many  books  in  many  places,  especially 
if  you  have  not  a  boy's  proud  plethora  of 
pockets.  Nothing  is  sadder  than  the  condition 
of  a  man  who  revels  in  notes,  when  he  gets  an 
idea  and  has  nothing  whereon  to  set  it  down. 


22  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

And,  for  a  final  point  in  regard  to  this  mat- 
ter, what  shall  we  do  with  our  old  notes  ?  In 
most  cases,  throw  them  away.  Their  mission 
was  ended  in  the  making.  Though,  of  course, 
if  they  are  notes  of  reading,  of  any  matter  not 
readily  accessible  in  other  form,  they  must 
either  be  written  out  in  full  or  pasted  in  some 
book  for  reference.  "When  found,  make  a 
note  on,"  said  dear  old  Captain  Cuttle.  In  all 
but  especially  valuable  cases,  good  student 
philosophy  would  dictate  :  "  When  found,  and 
made  a  note  on,  proceed  to  lose  the  note ! " 


CHAPTER  IY. 

HOW   TO  "  TAKE  "   LECTURES. 

I"  HEKE  was  once  a  young  farmer  who 
planted  corn  in  stiff  clay.  He  did 
not  plough  the  soil  before  planting, 
nor  did  he  hoe  it  when  the  few 
blades  appeared,  and  yet  he  grumbled  because 
he  got  no  harvest.  A  foolish  young  farmer, 
wasn't  he  ? 

But  if  he  was  foolish,  what  are  we  to  think 
of  the  silliness  of  those  who  complain  that  they 
never  can  remember  lectures,  or  sermons,  who 
in  the  same  manner  never  prepare  the  mental 
soil  for  the  listening  nor  go  over  it  again  for 
the  remembering  ?  Equally  foolish,  are  they 
not? 

Yet  how  many  such  we  have  all  seen ! 
They  go  out  to  hear  the  renowned  Professor 
Bigbrain  speak  on  Toussaint  P  Ouverture. 
They  bring  to  the  lecture  a  mind  which  is  ab- 
solutely virgin  soil.  Toussaint  may  have  been 
a  monk  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  a  Texas  cow- 
boy, or  a  French  explorer,  for  all  they  know. 

When  the   professor   begins   to  recite  that 

23 


24  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

most  romantic  story,  they  are  at  once  plunged 
into  a  perplexing  sea  of  uncertainties.  "  Just 
where  is  St.  Domingo  ?  Is  it  one  of  the  East 
or  the  West  Indies  ?  And  why  does  Professor 
Bigbrain  talk  about  the  French  and  Spanish 
and  the  British  and  the  negroes,  all  in  the 
same  breath  ?  But  there !  He  mentioned 
Cape  Town.  It  must  all  be  in  South  Africa ! 
And  there  comes  in  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 
This  £an't  be  in  the  Middle  Ages,  then !  " 

Do  you  wonder  that  on  the  way  home  they 
draw  a  long  breath  and  say,  "  Ah  !  That  was 
fine  !  What  a  hero  he  was !  But  I'll  not  re- 
member it  a  month "  ?  Ten  minutes'  work 
with  history,  atlas  and  encyclopaedia  before 
they  started  would  have  put  them  in  condition 
to  receive  the  whole. 

It  wouldn't  be  so  bad,  however,  if,  with  the 
impulse  Professor  Bigbrain  has  given  them, 
they  should  go  directly  home  and  read  over 
again  Toussaint's  marvelous  career.  That 
would  be  hoeing  the  corn  when  it  has  sprung 
up.  But  how  many  thus  review  and  make 
permanent  a  public  address  ? 

Many  wise  preachers  announce  their  themes 
beforehand,  in  pulpit  or  press.  How  many 
take  advantage  of  this  opportunity  for  a  little 
preparatory  plowing,  and  thus  double  the 
"  fold  "  with  which  the  good  seed  springs  up  ? 


HOW  TO    "TAKE"    LECTURES.  25 

And  in  how  many  homes  is  the  capital  old 
custom  extant,  which  gathered  the  household 
after  service,  to  rehearse,  with  the  aid  of  their 
united  memories,  the  entire  sermon  ? 

You  all  know  the  story  of  the  poor  washer- 
woman who,  being  forced  by  her  pastor  to  ac- 
knowledge that  she  always  forgot  both  text 
and  sermon,  caught  up  a  cleaned  cloth  from  the 
grass  and  showed  the  clerical  gentleman  how  it 
had  forgotten  all  the  water  which  had  passed 
through  it,  but  yet  was  whiter  and  purer  by 
the  operation.  The  ingenious  old  lady  forgot 
that  every  flood  of  true  oratory  bears  gold 
dust  with  it,  and  the  very  cloth  she  snatched 
up  had  been  so  worn  by  the  ceaseless  passage 
of  water,  that  every  particle  of  gold  passed 
through  its  pores ! 

Now  most  students  go  to  college  with  none  of 
this  drill  in  the  mastery  of  addresses,  though 
wise  parents  and  teachers  might  easily  have 
given  it  to  them,  and  they  plunge  unprepared 
into  a  system  of  education  which  more  and 
more  is  based  upon  the  lecture.  Note-taking 
is  an  art  not  to  be  picked  up  in  a  moment ;  it 
needs  a  long  apprenticeship ;  and  it  is  amazing 
and  pitiable  to  see  how  little  a  college  student 
will  often  bring  away  from  an  hour's  well 
digested  and  well  presented  discourse. 

The  value  of  shorthand  to  a  student  is  in- 


26  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

estimable.  It  will  save  him  every  month 
hours  of  time  spent  otherwise  in  laborious 
copying.  It  will  enable  him  to  make  a  full 
and  increasingly  valuable  record  of  his  reading. 
It  will  give  his  fingers  power  to  keep  pace  with 
his  mind  when  it  is  at  its  best,  so  that  he  will 
not  lose  one  idea  for  his  essay  while  setting 
down  another.  On  his  walks,  and  in  the  course 
of  conversation,  his  shorthand  notebook  will 
receive  many  a  fleeting  impression  that  other- 
wise would  escape  him.  The  day  is  coming 
when  every  boy  and  girl  will  be  taught  short- 
hand just  as  now  we  teach  longhand. 

But  it  is  in  taking  notes  of  lectures  that 
stenography  shines  most  glorious.  Three  or 
four  times  as  much  knowledge  may  be  gained 
from  a  course  of  lectures  by  a  student  thus 
equipped  as  he  would  obtain  by  the  use  of  the 
clumsy  longhand,  and  he  will  get  it  with  four 
times  the  ease  and  pleasure.  If  he  has  not 
learned  the  "art  beautiful,"  as  its  devotees 
fondly  call  it,  let  him  begin  at  the  entrance  of 
his  college  course,  and  work  in  the  shorthand 
characters  as  fast  as  he  learns  them.  As  soon 
as  he  has  taught  himself  to  make  a  dot  on  the 
line  to  represent  "  and,"  he  has  saved  himself 
twelve  strokes  for  every  "and  "  he  uses.  The 
gain  is  immediate  and  surprising,  and  con- 
stantly growing.  Some  scholars  fashion  for 


HOW  TO    "TAKE"    LECTURES.  27 

themselves  a  system  of  short  longhand,  writing 
"  wh  "  for  "  which,"  "  t "  for  "  the,"  and  the 
like.  This  is  advantageous,  but  what  is  the 
use  of  building  a  push-cart  when  you  might  as 
well  have  an  automobile  ? 

This  may  suffice  as  to  the  mechanics  of  note- 
taking,  though  I  have  found  it  not  amiss  in  my 
classes  to  recommend  the  use  of  soft,  easily 
working  lead-pencils  and  paper  with  a  rough 
surface,  small  notebooks  readily  slipped  into 
the  pocket,  and  more  than  one  pencil,  each 
with  a  point  already  made  !  So  ignorant  of 
note-taking  is  the  average  student  that  these 
little  hints  are  never  superfluous.  Now  a  word 
upon  the  mental  side  of  the  operation. 

In  the  first  place,  go  to  the  lecture  with  an 
alert  mind.  A  good  listener  is  not  a  dull, 
empty  bucket  into  which  information  is  poured 
till  it  overflows.  Such  a  mind  will  always 
leak  and  will  never  overflow.  Proper  listening 
is  analogous,  rather,  to  "fielding"  in  base- 
ball. There  is  your  man  at  the  bat  ready  to 
send  a  scorcher  right  down  the  centre,  and 
there  is  the  short-stop,  and  there  are  all  the 
fielders  with  their  backs  bent  forward,  their 
hands  extended,  their  legs  tense,  their  eyes 
snapping,  every  nerve  and  every  muscle  just 
aching  for  that  ball.  And  when  the  crack  is 
heard,  and  the  lovely  leather  sphere  rises  into 


28  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

the  air — "  A  fly !  A  good  fly  !  " — higher, 
higher,  and  then  swiftly  curves  down  into  two 
triumphant  hands — ah,  that  is  the  way  to 
"  take  "  a  lecture  !  How  quickly  a  teacher  re- 
sponds to  such  baseball  minds,  and  how  quickly 
they  respond  to  the  teacher,  how  "  hot "  the 
game  becomes  some  times,  and  what  a  score 
is  made ! 

I  have  already  said  enough  upon  the  second 
necessity  for  successful  note-taking,  namely, 
some  previous  knowledge  of  the  subject,  gained 
from  reading.  Read  enough  to  put  yourself  in 
the  questioning  attitude.  Get  a  few  queries 
started  in  your  mind.  Excite  your  own  cu- 
^  riosity.  Read  to  the  point  of  saying,  "  Well, 
this  is  interesting;  I'd  like  to  know  more 
about  it."  Then  you  will  know  more  about  it, 
for  food  scarcely  feeds  until  it  is  eaten  with 
an  appetite. 

Do  not  be  so  intent  on  your  note-taking  that 
the  process  diverts  your  mind  from  the  pro- 
fessor. The  baseball  player  is  not  thinking  about 
the  position  of  his  hands,  he  is  thinking  only 
of  the  ball  he  is  catching.  If  he  thought  about 
his  muscles  and  his  attitude,  he  would  not 
catch  the  ball.  Note-taking  must  become 
automatic,  instinctive. 

To  this  end,  your  notes  must  be  very  brief, 
mere  hints,  a  dash  of  paint  here,  a  dash  there, 


HOW  TO    "TAKE"   LECTURES.  29 

much  as  an  impressionist  painter  slashes  his 
colors  upon  the  canvas.  It  looks  like  a  view 
of  Pandemonium  until  you  stand  at  a  distance, 
when  it  flashes  into  a  bewitching  landscape. 
And  that  is  what  your  notes  are  for — to  read 
well  at  a  distance. 

The  rule  is,  "  Leave  out  all  you  can."  The 
amateur  laboriously  sets  down  everything — or 
tries  to.  Obvious  inferences,  unimportant  side- 
remarks,  illustrations  that  could  not  be  for- 
gotten if  one  tried,  elementary  facts  familiar 
to  him  from  boyhood — all  plod  into  their 
stupid  place  in  his  notebook.  Moreover,  he 
must  get  the  exact  wording,  and  while  he  is 
counting  the  buttons  on  the  coat  of  the  idea, 
the  idea  itself  has  slipped  away,  leaving  an 
empty  garment.  To  change  the  figure,  these 
blundering  note-takers  obtain  only  the  skeleton 
of  the  lecture.  Every  bone  is  there,  properly 
articulated,  it  may  be;  but  there  is  no  life, 
there  is  nothing  but  dead  bones.  And  to  that 
valley  of  dry  bones  no  Ezekiel's  miracle  is 
ever  vouchsafed. 

Much  of  the  value  of  note-taking  depends 
upon  the  prompt  writing  out  of  notes  before 
they  "  grow  cold."  Some  lazy  wights  have 
the  abominable  practice  of  transcribing  their 
week's  notes  all  on  a  day — the  last  possible 
day,  of  course,  and  get  as  much  good  from  the 


30  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

operation  as  they  would  if  they  applied  the 
same  plan  to  the  eating  of  their  week's  din- 
ners. Contrive  your  work,  if  possible — and  it 
will  be  possible  more  often  than  you  think — so 
that  not  an  hour  shall  intervene  between  the 
hearing  of  the  lecture  and  the  writing  out  of 
your  impressions.  You  will  then  have  added 
to  your  mental  retinue  not  a  mummy  but  a 
live,  vigorous  servant. 

It  is  an  advantage  also  in  writing  out  your 
notes  to  attempt  to  imitate  your  instructor's 
manner  as  well  as  record  his  matter,  to  catch 
his  spirit  as  well  as  his  facts.  Become  dra- 
matic ;  infuse  into  your  task,  which  so  readily 
becomes  monotonous,  a  little  of  the  histrionic 
fire ;  imagine  yourself,  as  you  write  out  your 
notes,  to  be  your  professor  teaching  that 
lesson,  and  you  will  be  that  professor,  more  or 
less,  and  you  will  gradually  add  no  small  part 
of  his  personality  to  your  own,  which  is  as 
much  finer  than  the  mere  collection  of  certain 
facts  as  a  man  is  more  than  a  date. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

CRAM. 

HERE  are  two  kinds  of  springs  in  the 
world.  One  is  the  everyday,  hum- 
drum affair  you  are  all  familiar  with, 
— plodding  along,  day  after  day, 
winter  and  summer,  at  just  so  many  gallons  a 
minute.  The  other  is  that  aqueous  spasm 
known  as  the  geyser.  It  is  stagnant  for  hours  ; 
then  come  rumblings  and  gruntings  as  if  the 
water  was  very  loth  to  disturb  itself ;  and 
then  the  geyser,  with  roar  and  brilliant  play 
of  jets,  shoots  high  into  the  air  a  gorgeous 
column.  For  all  its  fuss,  however,  I  fancy 
that  the  geyser  is  worth  much  less  to  the  world 
than  the  most  modest,  humdrum  spring. 

And  so  there  are  plodding  hillside-spring 
students,  just  the  same  day  after  day  ;  and 
there  are  geyser  students,  chiefly  stagnant, 
with  an  occasional  explosion  of  fussy  work. 
These  latter  students  are  said  to  "  cram." 

JSTow  this  word,  "  cram,"  is  by  a  metaphor 
carried  from  the  stomach  to  the  head ;  and  I 
wish  it  were  considered  as  vulgar,  as  it  cer- 

31 


32  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

tainly  is  as  mischievous,  to  cram  the  head  as 
the  stomach.  Consider  what  takes  place  at  a 
railway  station  to  which  has  just  come  an  ex- 
cursion with  a  cargo  of  trunks  twice  too  large 
for  the  rooms  and  the  force  of  men.  There  is 
impatient  running  here  and  there,  loud  shouts 
and  bad  language,  jamming,  stumbling,  top- 
pling over,  trunks  on  top  of  valises  or  smash- 
ing into  each  other,  everything  in  disorder, 
everybody  anxious  and  angry  and  fussy.  Just 
this  thing  occurs  when  we  try  to  shovel  into 
the  brain  a  double  quantity  of  facts  or  ideas. 
The  blood  runs  frantically  here  and  there,  the 
ganglia  shout  and  the  convolutions  use  bad 
language,  big  facts  are  piled  on  top  of  little 
facts  and  ideas  are  jammed  into  each  other, 
everything  is  in  disorder,  and  the  spirit  is  anx- 
ious and  confused. 

The  chief  reason — aside  from  laziness — why 
so  many  students  think  that  they  can  atone 
for  long  periods  of  study-indolence  by  occa- 
sional spurts  of  abnormal  mental  activity  is  be- 
cause they  do  not  consider  the  time-factor  in 
education.  They  cannot  see  why  six  hours' 
study  on  one  day  is  not  exactly  equivalent  to 
one  hour's  study  on  each  of  six  days.  I  am 
sure  that  I  should  help  the  average  scholar  im- 
mensely if  I  could  teach  him  the  power  of  the 
pause.  Let  me  attempt  to  give  you  the 


CRAM.  33 

reasons  why  we  students  must  say,  "  Sufficient 
unto  the  day  is  the  study  thereof,"  and  also, 
"  Give  us  day  by  day  our  daily  lessons." 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  because  green  facts, 
like  green  wood,  take  time  to  season.  You 
know  what  would  happen  if  you  should  put 
unseasoned  timber  into  a  house.  You  can 
fancy  the  warped  sides,  the  swayed  beams,  the 
doors  that  would  not  open  and  the  windows  that 
would  not  close.  Why,  even  sandstone,  when 
taken  from  the  quarry,  must  lie  a  few  months 
to  season,  before  builders  venture  to  use  it. 

Thinkers  recognize  a  like  peculiarity  in  facts 
and  thoughts.  Let  them  lie  for  a  few  days  or 
weeks  on  the  edge  of  the  thought-quarry,  turn 
them  over  on  review  day,  and  then  on  a  second 
review  day  organize  a  grand  building-bee,  and 
send  up  your  temple  of  knowledge  a  few 
inches  higher  with  material  that  will  not  warp. 

In  the  second  place,  cramming  is  a  vicious 
method  of  study  because  of  necessity  it  omits 
the  incidentals.  You  know  how  full  the 
heavens  are  of  shooting  stars, — so  full  that 
scarcely  an  hour  passes  during  which  some  are 
not  to  be  seen,  and  at  certain  times  the  sky  is 
ablaze  with  them.  The  way  to  count  them 
is  to  place  four  people  back  to  back,  facing  the 
four  quarters  of  the  sky.  Some  one  will  then 
see  every  meteor. 


34  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

But  what  if  some  impatient  astronomer 
should  seek  a  quicker  method,  arguing  thus : 
"  If  four  persons  in  one  hour  see  sixteen  mete- 
ors, then  if  I  station  one  hundred  people  in  my 
field,  they  will  see  in  the  same  hour  four  hun- 
dred meteors."  You  would  laugh  at  him. 
But  you  should  laugh  as  heartily  at  the  stu- 
dent who  thinks  he  can  in  three  weeks'  con- 
tinuous study  get  the  same  grasp  on  a  subject 
which  the  same  study  would  give  him,  scat- 
tered over  three  months.  To  a  person  who 
has  his  mind  on  the  watch  for  thoughts  on 
a  subject  the  world  is  as  full  of  ideas,  hints, 
suggestions,  as  the  sky  is  full  of  shooting  stars 
^  to  a  man  who  looks  for  them ;  but  these  hints 
from  books,  newspapers,  addresses,  conversa- 
tions, private  thought,  may  be  expected  only 
so  often,  and  any  process  of  cramming  will 
miss  the  larger  part  of  them.  The  true  stu- 
dent alone  knows  how  great  this  loss  is. 

The  third  reason  why  cramming  will  not  do 
the  work  of  continuous  study  is  because  it  de- 
stroys the  sense  of  leisure.     Mental  digestion 
1    as  well  as  physical  is  ruined  by  the  "  ten-min- 
»   utes-for-refreshment "  plan.     Nothing  that  is 
permanent  grows  in  a  hurry.     "  Why,  see  that 
new  building !  "  you  cry.     "  It  is  to  outlast  the 
pyramids  in  its  immense  grandeur,  and  it  has 
risen  as  if  by  magic  under  the  skilled  hands  of 


CRAM.  35 

our  Yankee  mechanics."  I  know  it.  They 
put  up  the  building  in  two  years.  But  I  fancy 
that  if  the  stone  they  used,  the  iron  and  the 
timber,  had  been  constructed  by  nature  in  only 
two  years,  that  building  would  fall  more 
promptly  than  it  rose.  Nature  never  crams. 
Let  the  student  who  thinks  he  can  study  by 
jerks  take  a  dose  of  geology  to  purge  his  mind 
and  another  of  astronomy  to  strengthen  it.  The 
quiet,  slow  reaches  of  God's  studies — studies 
in  world-making,  in  system-building — ought  to 
teach  us  hysterical  students  a  healthful  lesson. 
No  great  poem  was  ever  written  to  order, 
"while  you  wait."  You  cannot  "cram"  in 
essay-writing.  When  you  do,  it  becomes 
"  hack- writing,"  limping  and  forlorn  as  those 
melancholy  vehicles  after  which  it  is  named. 
Necessity  may  be  the  mother  of  invention,  for 
invention  works  only  with  the  materials  at 
hand ;  but  leisure  is  the  mother  of  creation,  ] 
and  the  work  of  the  true  scholar  is  always 
creative. 

The  fourth  reason  why  cramming  ruins  the 
student  is  because  it  destroys  individuality. 
Machines  can  be  crammed.  Your  printing- 
press  will  turn  off  a  few  thousand  copies  more 
an  hour  without  inconvenience  ;  your  telegraph 
is  perfectly  willing  to  clatter  with  double 
rapidity.  And  cramming  is  successful  with 


36  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

human  beings  precisely  as  they  lower  them- 
selves to  the  character  of  machines.  The  proc- 
ess of  cramming  is  for  all  alike.  It  consists 
in  text-book  gorging.  No  chance  for  the 
development  of  one's  originality  or  inventive- 
ness ;  no  chance  for  the  side  excursions  which 
are  often  worth  more  than  the  main  trip.  I 
know  a  wise  lady  who  took  her  daughters  out 
of  school  one  year,  partly  for  a  rest,  and  partly 
to  give  them  a  chance  to  do  especially  thor- 
ough work  in  American  history,  so  that  they 
might  be  able  to  visit  long  and  intelligently  the 
Columbian  Exposition.  Who  will  say  that 
that  was  not  a  capital  plan  ?  And  yet  those 
girls  were  not  advanced  by  it  one  step  nearer 
a  diploma;  and,  looked  at  from  the  side  of 
"  cram,"  all  such  original  ideas  are  needless 
absurdities. 

Some,  however,  who  would  not  at  first  sight 
seem  to  be  advocating  cramming,  say  that  if 
one  thing  alone  is  studied,  a  short  time  spent 
in  intense  study  on  that  is  equal  to  a  much 
longer  time  when  the  mind  is  distracted  with 
other  subjects.  This  is  the  argument  used 
by  many  authors  of  "six-week  methods"  or 
"courses"  in  Latin,  German,  geology,  and 
what  not.  The  men  who  urge  these  short 
cuts,  these  royal  roads,  to  knowledge,  forget 
that  people  can  study  three  things  as  easily  as 


CRAM.   -CALIFQ  37 

one.  You  have  observed  how  quickly  you 
tire  on  the  level  city  pavements,  whereas  you 
could  walk  miles  without  wearying  on  the  ups 
and  downs  of  a  country  road.  Variety  of 
studies,  in  like  manner,  brings  in  different  sets 
of  mental  muscles,  and  rasts  the  whole. 

Let  us  not  forget,  students,  that  the  times 
when  the  mind  is  doing  nothing  but  digesting 
the  things  already  learned  are  not  periods  of 
lazy  inactivity,  any  more  than  the  like  diges- 
tive periods  of  the  stomach,  but  times  of  the 
most  intense  and  necessary  activity.  The  old 
Jesuit  teachers  were  right  in  spending  six 
months  of  the  year  in  reviewing  what  they 
had  taught  during  the  preceding  six  months. 
What  is  soon  won  is  soon  lost.  You  cannot 
force  intellectual  growth  under  the  blue  glass, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  craze  of  a  few  years 
ago.  Eemember  the  principle  of  the  pulley  :\ 
what  you  lose  in  time  you  gain  in  power.] 
Cram  educates  nothing — nothing,  that  is,  but 
groundless  conceit  and  short-lived -effrontery. 
Study  as  the  locomotive  fireman  puts  in  coal, 
—not  half  a  ton  at  a  time,  not  at  long  inter- 
vals, poking  up  the  fire  to  make  it  burn  fiercely 
and  then  letting  it  die  away.  Watch  how  he 
does  it,  flinging  open  the  door  every  half -min- 
ute, carefully  placing  three  shovelfuls  where 
they  will  do  the  most  good,  spreading  the  fuel 


38  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

over  the  whole  surface,  so  that  the  same  steam- 
pressure  is  evenly  maintained.  After  that 
fashion  do  your  studying. 

And  what  if  it  is  the  teacher  who  wants  you 
to  cram?  In  that  case,  do  what  the  locomo- 
tive would  do  if  treated  in  such  a  foolish  way  : 
object ;  explode  ! 

An  incident  from  actual  life  that  came  un- 
der my  notice  tempts  me  to  close  this  chapter 
with  a  change  from  the  comparison  I  have 
just  drawn. 

In  New  York  City  once  M.  Cliquot,  a 
French-Canadian  sword-swallower,  as  a  test, 
in  the  presence  of  a  physician,  swallowed  four- 
teen swords,  whose  blades  were  about  an  inch 
wide.  The  physician  was  told  to  draw  out  the 
swords  to  satisfy  himself  of  the  reality  of  the 
exhibition,  and  instead  of  drawing  them  out 
one  by  one,  through  a  mistake  drew  them  all 
out  together.  He  cut  the  man  severely,  and 
caused  him  to  faint.  The  sword-swallower,  at 
the  time  when  the  newspaper  published  the 
account,  was  not  expected  to  live. 

This  is  rather  a  grewsome  story  to  draw  a 
moral  from,  but  you  are  likely  to  remember 
the  moral  all  the  better  for  that.  How  many 
scholars  I  have  known,  of  whom  this  too  am- 
bitious sword-swallower  is  a  type !  They 
would  swallow  a  whole  book  of  geometry, 


CRAM.  39 

chapter  after  chapter  of  astronomy,  an  entire 
oration  of  Cicero,  cramming  them  all  down 
together  with  the  greatest  ease.  But  try 
in  an  examination  to  draw  out  this  precious 
information,  and  there  were  white  faces,  and 
sometimes  faintings,  and  always  a  terrible 
mass  of  incoherences.  These  scholars  simply 
proved  to  have  swallowed  more  swords  than 
they  could  give  forth. 

And  if  this  is  true  of  school  examinations, 
still  more  is  it  true  of  those  casual  conversa- 
tions which  constitute  the  examinations  of 
post-graduate  life.  With  how  many  all  of 
their  school-day  learning  sticks  in  their  throats 
after  their  school-days  !  Their  brains  have  been 
crammed  full,  but  they  are  "  too  full  for  utter- 
ance," as  after-dinner  speakers  are  wont  to  say. 

Don't  be  such  fools,  my  students !  In  all 
your  study  look  as  carefully  to  the  using  of 
your  facts  as  to  the  storing  away  of  the  facts 
themselves.  Think  as  much  about  the  outgiv- 
ing of  your  lore  as  about  the  reception  of  it. 
In  debating  societies,  in  conversation,  in  the 
recitations  of  the  class-room,  in  writing  both 
for  yourself  and  for  others,  practice  draAving 
the  sword  of  wisdom,  even  more  assiduously 
than  you  practice  the  sheathing  of  it.  Thus 
alone  can  it  ever  become,  for  you  and  for 
others,  "  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon." 


OHAPTEK  VI. 

PER   CENTUM. 

HE  real  schoolmaster  of  many  a 
scholar  is  a  big  ogre  called  Per 
Centum.  No  matter  who  the  nom- 
inal teacher  may  be,  for  these  poor 
students,  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  school 
life,  Per  Centum  holds  the  rod  and  goads  the 
scholar  to  whatever  accomplishment  is  reached. 
The  teacher,  if  he  is  worth  anything,  hates  this 
ogre  Per  Centum  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart. 
He  knows  that  !Per  Centum  does  some  good, 
but  he  is  sure  he  does  more  evil,  and  the  teacher 
would  gladly  kick  him  out.  Too  often,  how- 
ever, the  tyranny  of  Per  Centum  over  that 
school  and  those  scholars  is  too  firmly  estab- 
lished for  successful  revolution. 

Per  Centum  is  the  demon  of  examinations ; 
and  before  telling  wherein  he  is  vicious,  let  me 
frankly  say  wherein  he  is  helpful.  Examina- 
tions are  valuable  in  two  ways  only.  They 
serve  as  reviews  and  as  revelations.  The  ex- 
amination concisely  sums  up,  if  the  questions 
are  wisely  chosen,  the  work  of  many  days. 

40 


PER   CENTUM.  41 

The  examination  reveals,  very  vividly,  the  stu- 
dent's weaknesses  to  himself.  Very  rarely  does 
the  examination,  however,  tell  the  teacher,  pro- 
vided again  he  is  a  good  teacher,  anything 
about  his  scholars'  scholarship  which  he  did 
not  know  before. 

Now  if  scholars  would  only  use  examina- 
tions as  they  use  other  helps  in  their  studies, 
— as  they  use  pencils  and  text-books  and  re- 
views and  regular  recitations, — all  would  be 
well.  But  Per  Centum,  Per  Centum  meddles, 
and  poisons  the  whole.  Students  soon  get  to 
studying  per  centum, — by  the  hundred,  that 
is;  and  not  per  amorem, — by  love.  Exami- 
nations become  the  goal,  and  not  a  means  to 
the  goal.  Scholars  treat  the  standing  taken 
on  examination  as  if  it  were  itself  the  knowl- 
edge, not  the  mere  empty  sign  of  the  knowl- 
edge ;  and  wrap  themselves  up  conceitedly  in 
it,  much  as  if  a  man  should  throw  his  new  coat 
into  the  fire,  and  put  on  the  wrapping-paper 
which  came  around  it.  And  with  this  view  of 
the  matter,  it  is  no  wonder  that  some  folks  will 
not  study  at  all  except  with  examinations  in 
prospect,  and  some  teachers  can  keep  their 
classes  at  work  only  by  entering  into  active 
partnership  with  the  big  ogre,  Per  Centum. 

The  first  mischief  this  misuse  of  examina- 
tions does  is  this  :  One  of  the  chief  advan- 


42  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

tages  of  genuine  study  is  that  it  sets  a  man  on 
his  own  feet ;  it  makes  him  original  and  inde- 
pendent. But  this  craven  slavery  to  per  cents, 
this  constant  measuring  up  against  others  in-  ' 
stead  of  against  our  best  selves,  is  destructive  \ 
of  all  sound  independence.  These  "honors" 
and  "  prizes  "  and  "  honorable  mentions  "  and 
"rewards  of  merit "  inspire — not  ambition  to? 
stand  high,  but  ambition  to  stand  higher  than 
somebody  else ;  not  zeal  to  excel,  to  be  excel-- 
lent,  but  ambition  to  surpass,  to  pass  some 
one.  And  the  spirit  these  things  cultivate  in 
schools  sends  out  those  sad  armies  of  graduates 
whose  life  consists  not  merely  in  eating  and 
drinking, — that  were  bad  enough, — but  in  eat- 
ing and  drinking  more  than  their  neighbors ; 
in  wearing  finer  clothes,  owning  bigger  houses, 
and  holding  more  important  offices.  And  it  is 
just  as  advantageous  for  the  good  scholar  as 
for  the  poor  one  to  be  free  from  this  bondage 
to  per  cents.  On  a  certain  set  of  questions  a 
fine  student,  with  a  ninety  per-cent  brain,  gets 
eighty  per  cent ;  another  student,  with  a  fifty 
per-cent  brain,  gets  sixty  per  cent.  "Which  of 
the  two  deserves  the  more  credit?  Which 
should  be  elated,  and  which  depressed  ?  Yet 
the  eighty  per  cent,  which  is  a  disgrace  to  the 
ninety  per-cent  fellow,  will  make  him  exult 
when  he  learns  of  his  comrade's  sixty  per  cent ; 


PER   CENTUM.  43 

and  that  comrade's  sixty  per  cent,  of  which 
he  should  be  proud,  will  fill  him  with  sorrow 
when  he  thinks  of  his  friend's  eighty  per  cent. 
Thus  it  is  that  it  equally  behooves  poor  and 
good  students  to  pay  slight  regard  to  these  mis- 
leading decimals,  and  consider  only  whether 
they  have  each  of  them  so  worked  as  to  win 
that  beautiful  commendation  of  the  Saviour's : 
"  She  hath  done  what  she  could." 

The  second  reason  why  per  cents  are  dan- 
gerous for  the  scholar  to  regard  earnestly  is 
because  they  furnish  a  standard  for  the  school 
life  which  disappears  as  soon  as  the  student 
passes  the  portal  of  his  active  life.  What  do 
we  hear  of  per  cents  after  school-days  ?  What 
does  that  business  man  care  whether  or  not  his 
bookkeeper  was  an  "  honor  boy  "  ?  Some  of 
the  boys  whom  we  remember  as  standing 
highest  on  the  grade-roll  of  classes  in  the  past, 
first-rate  men  as  far  as  per  cents  could  show 
them  up,  are  now  counted  by  the  world  fourth 
and  fifth  rate.  Their  teacher's  per  cents  could  \ 
not  estimate  kindness,  tact,  faith,  cheerfulness, 
integrity,  unselfishness,  adaptability,  "  horse 
sense,"  and  a  dozen  other  qualities  which  make  , 
a  very  prominent  figure  in  the  world's  great 
grade-book.  A  scholar  runs  a  vast  risk  when 
his  subservience  to  school  per  cents  leaves 
these  things  out  of  account. 


44  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

And  in  the  third  place,  faith  in  per  cents 
is  dangerous  because  no  student  studies  well 
while  thinking  how  well  he  is  studying,  any 
more  than  a  girl  looks  handsome  when  think- 
ing how  handsome  she  is  looking,  or  an  orator 
speaks  well  while  thinking  of  his  eloquence. 
Here  comes  in  the  inherent  viciousness  of 
measuring  results  rather  than  conduct.  All 
true  scholars  study  with  a  look  ahead  on  the 
path  to  be  followed,  not  with  looks  to  this 
side  and  that  and  behind  on  their  comrades  in 
the  pursuit.  That  is  why  the  word  "  grade  " 
is  finer  than  the  word  "  rank  " ;  grade  implies 
actual  elevation  in  the  world  of  truth;  rank 
implies  only  advancement  among  one's  fel- 
lows. For  the  sake,  then,  of  that  losing  of 
one's  self  in  one's  work  which  is  the  secret  of 
true  success,  let  all  students  pay  slight  atten- 
tion to  per  cents. 

In  the  fourth  place,  examinations  constitute 
a  danger  because  they  direct  the  student's 
mind  away  from  some  of  the  most  important 
qualifications  of  noble  study,  and  force  him  to 
seek  chiefly  the  characteristics  which  can  find 
expression  on  paper.  The  ogre  Per  Centum 
asks  him  to  consider,  "  What  will  be  my  grade 
in  quickness,  in  smartness,  in  ready  memory, 
in  glibness,  in  easy  assurance  ?  "  but  it  throws 
very  slight  emphasis  on  a  man's  gain  in  pa- 


PER   CENTUM.  45 

tience,  in  conscientiousness,  in  plodding  accu- 
racy, in  skilful  'research.  The  true  student 
ever  questions  himself,  "  What  is  my  per  cent 
in  these  f  " 

Let  it  be  said  emphatically,  students,  that  in 
urging  you  to  dethrone  this  ogre  Per  Centum, 
if  he  has  wielded  his  sceptre  over  your  study- 
ing, I  do  not  ask  you  to  be  any  more  easily 
satisfied  with  your  attainments,  any  less  stern 
critics  of  your  efforts.  I  merely  ask  you  not 
to  be  satisfied  with  false  aims.  I  ask  you  to 
gain  for  yourselves  that  essential  power-  of  the 
scholar,  the  ability  to  recognize  wherein  he 
has  succeeded  and  in  what  his  true  progress 
consists.  A  wrong  incentive  always  injures 
more  than  it  helps ;  and  on  the  contrary,  if 
you  study  for  the  best  ends,  you  will  find  that 
this  higher  motive  will  with  its  own  results 
bring  also  all  the  results  of  the  lower,  and  you 
will  still  get  just  as  large  per  cents  as  before. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CONQUERING  THE  EXAMINATION  BUGBEAR. 

that  is  not  enough  to  say  about 
these  important  examinations.  It 
is  not  sufficient  to  say,  "Do  not 
study  for  per  cents."  That  is  nega- 
tive. The  examination  bugbear  is  not  to  be 
conquered  so  easily. 

It  is  a  bugbear,  and  a  big  one.  I  have  seen 
many  a  student  come  into  my  recitation  room, 
with  his — or  her — it  generally  was  her — face 
as  white  as  this  paper  on  which  I  am  writing, 
the  eyes  red  from  weeping,  and  dark  circles 
under  them,  born  of  the  midnight  vigil  of  the 
night  before.  And  I  have  watched  the  grow- 
ing nervousness,  and  the  despairing  clutch 
after  vanishing  facts,  and  the  agonizing  break- 
down in  a  burst  of  sobs  as  the  poor  student 
left  the  room.  I  have  seen  this,  I  say,  more 
than  once ;  and  yet  I  was  as  wise  and  patient 
and  sensible  a  teacher  as  I  knew  how  to  be. 

But,  you  see,  so  much  depends  upon  an  ex- 
amination, no  matter  how  much  weight  is 
given  to  the  recitations.  It  is  the  climax  and 

46 


CONQUERING  THE  EXAMINATION  BUGBEAR.    47 

the  test  of  so  much  work.  It  means  the 
praise  or  the  scorn  of  so  many.  It  has  so  im- 
portant a  bearing  on  future  welfare.  No 
wonder  that  a  feeble  wit  or  a  faint  heart 
grows  nervous  at  the  very  thought  of  one.  It 
is  a  bugbear  indeed,  with  horrible  teeth  and 
hairy  arms  and  long  claws  at  the  end  of  them. 

Nevertheless,  I  believe  in  examinations, 
kept  within  bounds  and  duly  balanced  by 
other  considerations,  such  as  recitations  and 
general  faithfulness  and  intelligence.  I  be- 
lieve in  them,  because  they  are  inevitable  in 
after  life,  and  the  student  should  be  trained 
to  meet  them.  The  world  has  a  very  abrupt 
way  of  bidding  us  "  stand  and  deliver  "  what- 
ever knowledge  we  possess.  All  its  drafts 
upon  us  are  sight  drafts.  If  our  scholarship  is 
wanted  after  commencement  day,  ten  to  one 
it  is  wanted  in  conversation  and  when  there  is 
no  opportunity  to  stop  and  consult  the  ency- 
clopaedia or  the  text-book.  The  world  pro- 
ceeds on  the  entirely  reasonable  assumption 
that  no  one  really  knows  a  thing  till  he  can 
tell  it,  and  its  examinations  are  far  more  fre- 
quent and  merciless  than  those  of  the  harshest 
pedagogue  that  ever  figured  out  a  per  cent. 

And  so  we  must  in  some  way  conquer  the 
bugbear,  since  we  cannot  annihilate  him. 

There  are  three  ways  of  disposing  of  bears. 


48  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

One  of  them  is  by  shooting.  We  can  shoot 
the  examination  bugbear.  "  Shoot  it !  "  is  a 
slang  phrase  that  signifies  (so  I  am  told)  indif- 
ference, scorn,  contempt.  We  may  shoot  the 
bugbear  in  that  way,  by  learning  to  despise  it, 
by  schooling  ourselves  to  be  careless  of  it,  by 
entering  the  examination  hall  with  a  swagger, 
and  sitting  down  to  the  desk  with  a  giggle, 
and  writing  down  the  wrong  answer  with  a 
grin.  I  don't  recommend  this  course.  The 
gun  is  quite  certain  to  kick. 

Then  there  is  the  method  of  trap-setting.  We 
may  capture  the  bugbear  by  guile.  We  may 
say  to  ourselves,  "  In  my  room  I  knew  all  this 
perfectly,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should 
not  know  it  in  this  room.  Yesterday,  when 
nothing  depended  on  it,  I  told  the  professor 
everything  he  wanted  to  know.  To-day,  when 
something  does  depend  on  it,  I  am  not  going 
to  be  so  foolish  as  to  lose  my  knowledge.  I 
will  play  that  I  am  writing  a  letter  to  my 
mother,  telling  her  about  these  things.  What 
is  the  use  of  getting  '  rattled '  over  a  matter  I 
shall  have  forgotten  all  about  come  this  time 
next  year  ?  " 

You  may  set  that  sort  of  trap  for  the  bug- 
bear, baiting  it  with  philosophy, — and  very 
good  philosophy,  too.  The  only  trouble  is 
that  bears  are  sharp,  especially  bugbears.  The 


CONQUERING  THE  EXAMINATION  BUGBEAR.    49 

chances  are  that  he  won't  walk  into  your  trap, 
but  instead -will  walk  into  you. 

No ;  the  only  course  I  can  recommend  to  be 
taken  with  the  examination  bugbear  is  to  tame 
him.  It  requires  time.  You  must  begin  to 
make  advances  as  soon  as  you  begin  the  study. 
You  must  get  a  little  better  acquainted  with 
him  every  day.  .You  must  examine  yourself 
rigorously.  You  must  ask  yourself  all  the 
questions  you  can  think  of  regarding  the  sub- 
ject, as  you  proceed  in  your  studies.  You  must 
get  your  fellow-students  to  cross-examine  you. 
You  must  convert  your  room  into  a  regular 
courtroom,  and  you  must  put  yourself  on  the 
witness-stand  every  night  and  every  morning. 
You  must  often  write  out  your  questions,  and 
you  must  still  more  often  write  out  your  an- 
swers. When  you  are  sure  you  know  it,  you 
must  begin  another  review.  Every  review 
will  clip  the  bear's  claws  shorter. 

My  word  for  it,  long  before  the  term  has 
come  to  an  end,  your  bugbear  will  be  a  very 
tame  bear  indeed,  a  dancing-bear  that  will 
prance  into  the  examination  room  with  you, 
and  prance  out  again,  clumsy,  to  be  sure,  as 
all  bears  are,  and  yet  your  most  obedient  serv- 
ant to  command. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

STUDYING    ON   BUSINESS    PRINCIPLES. 

O  student  will  ever  be  successful  who 
does  not  make  a  business  of  study, 
and  manage  his  studying  on  busi- 
ness principles.  Suppose  a  store  is 
to  be  built.  "What  if  the  workmen  should 
come  strolling  along,  some  at  six,  some  at  ten, 
some  in  the  afternoon  ?  What  if  some  forget 
their  tools  and  must  go  after  them  ?  What  if 
some  forget  what  they  are  to  work  on,  and  sit 
idly  waiting  new  directions  ?  What  if  a  squad 
of  them  get  tired  of  working  in  one  place  and 
begin  to  put  up  a  store  a  square  or  two  dis- 
tant ?  What  if  half  a  dozen  of  their  friends 
come  along  and  chat  for  an  hour  ?  What  if 
their  tools  are  dull  or  broken,  and  they  must 
suspend  operations  and  put  them  in  order  ? 

But  what  is  the  use  of  "  supposing  "  ?  These 
things  do  not  happen,  you  say. 

Yes  they  do,  though !  They  happen  very 
often  when  most  of  us  set  to  work  on  our 
Temple  of  Knowledge,  in  which  we  are  to 
dwell  forever.  We  stroll  easily  along  to-day, 

50 


STUDYING   ON  BUSINESS  PRINCIPLES.        51 

and  begin  work  at  10  A.  M.  or  at  3  P.  M.  To-mor- 
row we  are  up  before  daybreak,  and  not  asleep 
until  after  midnight.  We  start  to  work,  and 
find  that  we  do  not  know  what  to  work  at,  or 
that  we  have  mislaid  our  tools.  Or  we  dis- 
like our  surroundings,  and  uneasily  shift  our 
work  to  some  other  place,  or  our  energies  to 
some  other  task.  Or  a  number  of  friends 
come  along  and  call  us  from  our  labors. 

Strange  that  we  students,  whose  business  is 
of  the  highest,  will  go  about  it  in  such  unbusi- 
nesslike ways !  that  we  will  admit  into  our 
work-shops  practices  which  would  be  scorned 
in  the  humblest  blacksmith  shop  in  the  land ! 
Let  me  name  one  or  two  points  of  business 
policy  which  most  students  need  to  watch. 

In  the  first  place,  sit  down  to  your  work 
with  your  tools  about  you.  There  is  much 
virtue  in  a  well-arranged  set  of  shelves  and 
pigeon-holes.  If  people's  brains  are  modelled 
after  their  work-rooms,  as  I  verily  believe  they 
are,  the  convolutions  of  some  good  people  I 
know  must  be  patterned  after  a  crazy-quilt. 
The  dictionary  is  under  the  sofa.  The  atlas  is 
propping  up  a  rickety  shelf.  The  ink-bottle 
has  no  stopper,  and  the  pens  are  all  frayed 
out.  The  encyclopaedia  begins  with  R  and 
ends  with  F.  '  The  blotter  is  under  the  lamp 
to  catch  the  drippings,  and  on  the  book-shelves 


52  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

are  stored  the  daily  papers,  the  gloves,  the 
mutton  tallow,  and  the  box  of  matches.  How 
can  any  ordered  thought  spring  from  such 
surroundings?  How  can  any  but  an  Old 
Curiosity  Shop  of  a  brain  live  in  such  a  den  ? 
Dickens  could  never  work  unless,  together 
with  its  usual  neatness,  his  desk  was  adorned 
with  a  few  odd  and  familiar  ornaments.  Most 
able  men  are  similarly  methodical.  It  is  no 
)  longer  held  a  sign  of  genius  to  delight  in  dis- 
/  order ;  and  the  first  step  in  studying  should 
be  to  arrange  and  keep,  with  scrupulous  neat- 
ness and  exactness,  all  the  books,  papers,  and 
instruments  that  belong  to  the  studying.  I  do 
not  mean  that  you  are  to  be  fussy,  or  get 
yourself  into  such  a  state  that  you  cannot 
work  unless  your  dictionary  holder  is  at  an 
angle  of  thirty  degrees  and  every  volume  of 
your  encyclopaedia  just  two  inches  from  the 
front  of  the  shelf ;  but  I  do  want  you  to  learn 
the  immense  saving  of  time,  strength,  and 
temper  *  involved  in  obedience  to  the  business 
principle,  "A  place  for  everything,  and 
everything  in  its  place." 

My  second  business  maxim  would  be,  "  One 
thing  at  a  time."  It's  only  in  your  little 
country  stores,  where  much  bustle  must  make 
amends  for  little  business,  that  you  will  see  a 
man  showing  goods  to  one  customer,  talking 


STUDYING   ON  BUSINESS  PRINCIPLES.        53 

gossip  with  another,  scolding  a  clerk  as  a  by- 
the-way,  all  the  while  scrawling  an  order  to 
be  sent  with  the  next  mail.  In  a  large  estab- 
lishment, where  time  is  really  precious,  the 
manager  sees  one  man  at  a  time,  attends  to 
one  point  at  a  time,  and  settles  it  forever. 

Too  much  of  our  study  is  modeled,  is  it 
not?  on  the  country  store.  We  begin  our 
geometry  with  our  Latin  in  our  mind,  and  all 
the  time  we  think  we  are  getting  one  lesson 
we  are  worrying  over  the  next.  "  Do  ye  nexte 
thynge  "  is  a  useful  and  justly  popular  motto, 
take  it  at  its  meaning ;  but,  as  a  friend  of 
mine  remarks^  it  is  doing  the  "  nexte  thynge  " 
in  our  anxious  minds,  when  we  ought  to  be 
doing  the  present  thing,  that  spoils  much  of 
the  work  of  this  world.  We  can  make  of  our 
minds,  at  our  will,  either  concave  lenses  to 
scatter  brain-power,  or  convex  lenses  to  con- 
centrate it.  "  One  thing  at  a  time,"  then,  fel- 
low-students. 

And  my  next  point  is  important  enough  to 
have  a  chapter  to  itself. 


CHAPTEK  IX. 

MIDNIGHT   OIL. 

]E  burns  the  midnight  oil : "  of  whom 
is  that  customarily  said  ?  Of  the 
student,  to  be  sure;  poor  fools 
that  students  are !  There  is  much 
ground  for  the  charge ;  and  indeed,  the  student 
is  usually  silly  enough  to  consider  it  no  indict- 
ment, but  a  compliment.  A  compliment !  to 
be  heralded  as  a  transgressor  of  a  law  written 
afresh  each  day  in  golden  characters  on  the 
sky ;  written  by  the  mighty  sun  himself,  Avho 
calls  us  to  toil  by  his  rising,  and  just  as  im- 
peratively calls  us  to  rest  by  his  setting.  A 
compliment !  to  have  it  said  of  us  that  we  pre- 
fer the  foul-smelling,  flickering,  yellow  lamp 
or  gas-jet  to  the  quiet,  strong,  pure  brilliance 
of  the  daylight.  A  compliment!  to  be  pro- 
claimed a  study-drunkard,  so  intemperate  with 
intellectual  delights  that  to  get  them  we  pawn 
eyes  and  lungs,  muscle  and  heart,  good  tem- 
per and  good  health, — pawn  them  for  bits  of 
printed  paper. 

Some  students,  to  be  sure,  so  deform  their 

54 


MIDNIGHT  OIL.  55 

lives  by  bad  habits  that  they  cannot  study  at 
all  until  the  lamps  are  lighted  and  begin  to 
smoke ;  just  as  some  persons  can  train  them- 
selves to  eat  arsenic.  The  sensible  student 
looks  upon  both  as  physiological  monstrosi- 
ties. Students,  let  me  tell  you  what  I  have 
learned  by  many  a  foolish  midnight  lampwick^ 
I  have  learned  that  sleep  is  the  soil  of  thought! 
Night  study  is  like  ploughing,  planting,  and 
tending  a  thin  and  arid  soil.  The  seed  springs 
slowly,  white  and  feeble.  The  fruit  hangs  list- 
less, small  and  withered.  But  the  morning 
hour  is  magical.  Ideas  push  for  room  without 
the  planting.  Thought  is  eager,  luxuriant,  full- 
freighted. 

On  the  whole,  students,  it  isn't  the  quantity  i 
of  your  studying  that  will  count,  but  its  qual- 
ity. More  students  fail  from  a  misconception 
on  this  point  than  from  any  other  cause  ex- 
cept laziness.  Jewelers  advise  us  to  wind  our 
watches  in  the  morning,  that  the  spring  may 
give  its  most  eager  tension  to  the  working 
hours  of  the  day.  Teachers  must  give  similar 
advice  to  students ;  for  good  Dame  Nature 
winds  up  the  mainspring  of  our  lives  for  us 
by  sleep.  Do  your  chief  studying  while  its 
tension  is  strong. 

Not  quantity  of  study,  but  quality.     How 
many  tons  of  coal-dust  equal  in  value  the  dia- 


56  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

mond  of  twenty  carats  ?  And  how  many  hours 
of  black  midnight  will  buy  a  minute  of  the 
sparkling  morning  ?  Both*  the  last  are  made 
of  time,  as  both  the  first  are  made  of  carbon. 
Ten  minutes  under  best  conditions  are  worth 
in  studying  value  ten  hours  under  the  worst. 

But  good  conditions  mean  more  than  mere 
time  of  day.  How  many  cubic  feet  of  air  go, 
do  you  think,  to  the  solving  of  a  problem  in 
algebra?  how  many  to  the  translation  of  a 
page  of  German  ?  I  suppose  the  wise  men 
could  find  out  for  us,  if  they  set  about  it. 
Most  of  us  are  unconscious  that  we  are  trans- 
forming fresh  air  into  thought.  The  windows 
and  the  stove  doors  are  tightly  shut.  Our 
thoughts  grow  stale  as  the  air  grows  stale; 
our  brain  grows  weak  with  the  weakening  of 
the  oxygen.  Making  bricks  without  straw  is 
child's  play  compared  with  the  attempt  to 
make  ideas  without  oxygen.  "  O,"  you  know,  is 
the  chemical  symbol  of  this  gas  so  indispen- 
sable to  the  student;  and  many  a  time  as  I 
have  placed  with  my  blue  pencil  a  big,  round 
cipher  opposite  some  of  my  scholars'  answers, 
or,  perchance,  inscribed  the  entire  examination 
paper  with  that  condemnation,  I  have  felt 
moved  to  translate  it  for  the  unfortunates, 
"  Oxygen  !  Oxygen  !  Take  warning  !  More 
oxygen ! " 


MIDNIGHT  OIL.  57 

But  if  sleep  and  fresh  air  go  to  make  a  stu- 
dent, exercise  is  no  less  necessary.  It  is  all 
but  impossible  to  get  some  people  to  see  the 
relation  between  muscle  and  mind,  between 
brain  and  blood,  between  lungs  and  learning. 
If  a  Greek  sentence  seems  foggy,  they  think 
it  needs  more  study ;  it  probably  needs  more 
tennis.  Fitly  is  the  poet's  verse  said  to  bej 
made  up  of  feet !  Many  a  time  a  walk  has 
written  an  essay  for  me ;  yes,  almost  as  liter- 
ally as  if  I  were  the  armless  man  at  the  circus, 
writing  the  essay  with  my  feet !  I  can  climb 
up  the  steepest  slopes  of  the  hill  of  science, 
provided  I  can  mount  my  bicycle.  O,  if  men 
and  women  who  want  to  think  ^  only  knew  of 
what  an  army  their  brain  might  be  general-in- 
chief,  when  they  make  it  a  mere  private ! — 
general-in-chief  of  two  hundred  bones,  of  four 
hundred  muscles,  of  blood-vessels  and  nerves 
innumerable.  What  a  pity  to  force  this  gen- 
eral to  fight  his  battles  alone,  while  his  myriads 
of  soldiers  are  either  inactive  or  in  rebellion ! 


CHAPTER  X. 

WASTING   BKAINS. 

HAT  if  a  general  should  march  forth 
his  army  with  no  food  supply, 
shelter  tents,  ambulances,  no  line  of 
communication,  no  ammunition,  no 
shovels  to  throw  up  intrenchments  ?  What 
universal  execration  would  assail  him !  Yet  is 
it,  really,  a  smaller  folly  to  march  forth  our 
brain-troops  in  a  hot,  close  room,  with  a  dim 
and  flickering  light,  with  stomach  in  dyspep- 
tic rebellion  against  unfit  food,  with  neck 
choked  by  a  tight  collar,  or  lungs  imprisoned 
in  a  straight- jacket  ?  Can  any  knowledge  or 
wisdom  be  the  booty  of  such  a  campaign  ? 

Why,  the  very  rooms  in  which  we  study 
fairly  determine  the  quality  of  our  thought. 
If  they  are  ill  kept,  our  thoughts  will  be 
dowdy ;  if  they  are  dirty,  our  thoughts  will  be 
impure ;  if  they  are  gloomy,  our  brain  will  be 
far  from  brilliant. 

And  the  position  of  our  body  has  as  much  to 
do  with  our  mental  efficiency  as  the  erect  car- 
riage of  a  soldier  has  to  do  with  his  prompt- 

58 


WASTING  BRAINS.  59 

ness,  vigor,  and  bravery.  A  slouching  attitude 
at  desk  or  table  contributes  to  careless  think- 
ing ;  a  position  easy,  alert,  and  self-contained 
helps  greatly  toward  the  same  masterful  quali- 
fies in  our  thought. 

Does  this  seem  materialistic  ?  Have  you  an 
uneasy  suspicion  that  mind  should  rise  supe- 
rior to  body  and  physical  surroundings  ?  That 
is  a  pagan,  a  Stoical,  idea.  We  are  taught  a 
higher  doctrine.  We  are  taught  that  our 
bodies  are  temples  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  and 
how  can  we  justly  expect  the  right  exercise  of 
the  minds  He  has  given  us,  when  we  scorn  and 
abuse  His  temple  ? 

And  so  the  very  first  thing  a  student  is  to 
attend  to,  before  a  page  is  scanned  or  a  pencil 
touched  to  paper,  is  his  physical  surroundings  ; 
to  get  full  and  steady  light,  pure  air,  fit  food 
and  proper  clothing,  cool  head,  warm  feet,  the 
glow  of  exercise  and  the  refreshment  of  sleep, 
desk  and  body  well  mated,  a  room  clean  and 
neat  and  cheery.  And  if  these  things  are  not 
so  ordered,  the  wise  student  will  postpone  his 
studying  and  attend  to  them. 

The  writer  once  started  on  an  excursion  up 
beautiful  Lake  George.  The  little  steamer 
moved  gaily  out  from  Fort  William  Henry, 
got  a  few  hundred  yards  from  land,  ran  more 
and  more  slowly,  then  stopped.  There  seemed 


60  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

no  accident ;  there  was  no  breakage  in  the 
machinery ;  nevertheless,  we  ran  in  shore,  and 
the  passengers  were  told  to  leave  the  boat. 
There  would  be  no  excursion  that  day.  Some- 
thing was  wrong  with  the  machinery ;  just 
what,  no  one  seemed  to  know ;  but  all  were 
satisfied  with  that  information.  No  one  wants 
to  ride  in  a  steamboat  with  even  a  nut  loose 
anywhere.  Every  one  knows  what  is  meant 
by  "  racking  machinery," — that  a  screw  loose 
soon  loosens  its  neighbor ;  a  rod  snapping  here 
clogs  a  wheel  there ;  and  in  a  very  few  min- 
utes the  contagion  of  ruin  has  brought  about  an 
utter  collapse.  Yet  we  think  nothing  of  work- 
ing brain  and  body  with  a  dozen  screws  loose 
in  the  machinery. 

Let  us  remember  that  our  bodies  are  much 
more  efficient  engines  than  any  locomotive 
ever  made.  The  best  steam-engine  does  work 
which  represents  only  one-eighth  of  the  en- 
ergy developed  by  the  burning  of  the  coal ; 
but  our  bodies  manage  to  make  use  of  fully 
one-fifth  of  the  food-power  we  put  into  them, 
merely  in  such  acts  as  running  and  handling ; 
and  a  vastly  larger  per  cent  of  it  is  utilized  in 
other  ways  harder  to  measure.  In  fact,  we 
have  an  almost  perfect  engine  with  which  to 
do  our  thinking.  All  the  more  shame  to  us  if 
we  use  its  economies  in  a  spendthrift  way. 


OF  THE 


WASTING  BRAINS.-  61 

All  the  more  shame  to  us  ii  we  fasten  down 
the  safety-valve,  OF  clog  the  wheels,  or  allow 
the  joints  to  become  dry  and  rusty. 

In  the  judgment  day,  we  must  believe,  such 
questions  as  these  will  be  asked :  of  the  farmer, 
"  How  do  you  answer  for  the  small  yield  of 
that  rich  field  ?  "  of  the  preacher,  "  How  do 
you  account  for  the  pitiably  few,  come  to 
heaven  from  your  parish  ?  "  and  of  the  student, 
"  What  did  you  do  with  such  a  wondrous  out- 
fit as  I  gave  you,  wherewith  you  might  enrich 
the  world  with  strong  and  helpful  thought  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XL 

WHAT   IS  UNDER  YOUR  HEAD  ? 


so,  wisely  anticipating  the  judg- 
ment day,  let  this  earnest  question 
be  asked  of  every  student  :  "  What 
is  under  your  head  f  "  You  may  im- 
agine the  stern  query  propounded  by  a  Sphinx, 
sitting  solemnly  on  the  road  named  Success  in 
Life,  and  with  her  great  paw  knocking  off  on 
the  gloomy  by-path  of  Disappointment  every 
one  of  you  that  cannot  pass  her  examination 
satisfactorily. 

First  (as  the  Sphinx  will  want  to  know).  Is 
a  good  pair  of  lungs  under  your  head  ?  Brains 
are  fine  things,  with  their  wise  wrinkles  and 
sage  convolutions  ;  but  brains,  after  all,  are 
dull  things  without  lungs  to  blow  the  breath 
of  life  into  them,  and  keep  it  there,  fresh  and 
vigorous.  Why,  your  brain  may  be  as  big  as 
Cuvier's  or  Butler's,  but  if  your  lungs  are  as 
shriveled  as  some  must  be,  I  would  no  more 
insure  your  intellectual  fame  than  a  life-in- 
surance company  would  insure  your  poor,  ill- 
treated  body. 

62 


WHAT  IS   UNDER   YOUR  HEAD*  63 

Secondly.  Is  a  good  stomach  under  your 
head?  You  may  laugh,  butTjust  wait  until 
you  try  to  drive  genius  and  dyspepsia  in  the 
same  harness.  Brains  and  bile  are  mortal  foes. 
If  your  stomach  won't  digest  food,  it  really 
doesn't  matter  how  many  tons  of  facts  your 
brains  will  digest.  A  strong  head  on  a  weak 
stomach  is  about  as  useful  as  the  Lick  tele- 
scope would  be,  planted  on  a  bobbing  buoy. 

Thirdly.  Is  a  good  pair  of  hands  under  your 
head  ?  Not  hands  white  and  delicately  formed, 
though  I  have  no  objection  in  the  world  to 
that ;  but — what  is  more  to  the  point  in  con- 
nection with  your  head — hands  that  are  shrewd 
to  carry  out  what  the  brain  is  shrewd  to  con- 
trive, busy  hands,  accurate  hands,  quick  hands, 
ready  bands,  gentle  hands,  brave  hands, — are 
those  under  your  head  ?  Hands  that  can 
write  down  your  brain's  wise  fancies  with  a 
penmanship  clear  as  print.  Hands  that  can,  if 
need  be, — and  need  is  likely  to  be, — help  your 
fine  brain  eke  out  a  livelihood.  A  brain  without 
hands  is  like  a  general  without  staff  officers. 

Fourthly.  Is  a  good  pair  of  feet  under  your 
head  ?  Not  feet  that  are  weak  and  clumsy 
and  smarting  with  corns  and — pretty  because 
the  tightly  squeezed  leather  outside  is  pretty, 
but  feet  that  retain  nature's  beautiful  outlines, 
feet  that  are  on  good  terms  with  the  ground, 


64  HO  W  TO  STUDY. 

and  can  press  it  with  loving,  easy  grace,  for  a 
happy  twenty  miles  at  a  time.  Errand-speed- 
ing feet.  Dancing,  springing,  merry  feet. 
Feet  soft  and  light  in  sick-rooms.  Feet  sturdy  / 
and  swift  on  the  path  of  duty.  Are  these  un- 
der your  head  ? 

O,  I  know,  students,  what  a  masterful  thing 
a  head  is.  I  know  what  mountain-high  diffi- 
culties it  can  overleap.  I  know  what  triumphs 
a  Henry  Martyn,  for  instance,  can  wring  out 
of  his  frail,  fever-tortured,  cough-racked  body, 
"  burning  out  for  God."  I  know  that  when 
God  chooses  to  hold  up  a  man's  head  with 
nothing  under  it, — or  next  to  nothing,  like 
Mahomet's  coffin  suspended  in  mid-air  by  in- 
visible forces, — God  can  do  it.  But,  just  the 
same,  He  seldom  does  do  it ;  and  it  is  the  most 
impudent  presumption  to  abuse  our  bodies  in 
the  faith  that  He  will  do  it. 

Look  upon  your  head,  young  people, — and 
old, — as  the  glorious  climax  of  your  bodies ; 
but  don't  try  to  build  a  pyramid  out  of  an 
apex,  with  no  foundation.  In  one  sense,  the  , 
pedestal  is  as  important  as  the  statue  that  it  sup- 
ports. And  if  your  pedestal  is  crumbling,  and 
just  ready  to  totter,  stop  your  chiseling  away 
at  the  statue  long  enough  to  build  up  a  stout 
pedestal,  else  the  statue  itself,  with  all  its  grow- 
ing beauty,  will  topple  in  ruin  to  the  ground. 


CHAPTEK  XII. 

THE   LESSON   SIMPSON   LEARNED. 

learns  a  great  deal  from  one's  doc- 
tor, whether  one  wants  to  or  not. 
The  bed  is  a  school  not  so  easy  to 
run  away  from,  and  as  the  physician 
sits  by  the  bedside  he  occupies  a  professor's 
chair  of  much  prominence  to  at  least  one  per- 
son in  the  world.  I  want  to  tell  you  of  a  les- 
.  son  my  young  friend  Simpson  learned  in  this 
school  not  many  months  ago. 

Simpson  is  a  schoolteacher  himself,  and  so 
should  not  have  been  obliged  to  go  to  the  doctor's 
school ;  but  there  he  was,  flat  on  his  back  with 
the  most  distressing  of  nervous  headaches, — a 
headache  such  as  I  hope  half  of  you — it  is  too 
much  to  hope  none  of  you — know  nothing  about ; 
one  that  set  every  shred  of  the  brain  and  every 
fibre  of  the  body  quivering  with  excruciating 
pain.  And  amid  his  throbs  of  agony  Simpson 
was  bemoaning  to  the  doctor  his  worries  over 
his  school  that  he  ought  to  be  teaching,  and 
his  studies  that  he  ought  to  be  studying, 
and  beseeching  the  doctor  to  give  him  some- 

65 


66  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

thing  he  could  take,  to  put  him  to  work 
again. 

In  answer  to  the  doctor's  question  the  whole 
story  came  out.  Simpson  was  remaining  out 
of  college  his  junior  year  in  order  to  get 
money  enough  for  his  senior  year,  and  he  was 
trying  to  teach  school  all  day  and  keep  up 
with  his  college  class  by  studying  a  large  part 
of  the  night.  "I  got  along  famously  until 
lately,"  he  moaned.  "  I  have  had  a  good  many 
headaches  all  along,  but  a  cup  of  strong  coffee 
and  five  of  my  headache  tablets  have  always 
cured  me  in  the  course  of  an  hour  or  so,  so 
that  I  could  go  on  with  my  work  again.  But 
lately  these  have  not  seemed  to  do  much  good. 
And  now,  doctor,  what  shall  I  take  f  " 

Then  came  the  little  lesson  I  mentioned  at 
the  beginning.  The  doctor  rose  from  his  chair 
so  that  he  looked  down  at  Simpson,  very  tall 
and  solemn.  "  Young  man,"  said  he,  "  what 
you  need  to  take  is  not  medicine,  but  rest- 
rest  and  exercise  and  good  food,  with  time  to 
digest  it  well.  Headaches  are  symptoms,  and 
you  are  trying  to  cure  the  symptoms,  without 
looking  deeper  to  find  the  evil  to  which  they 
would  direct  your  attention.  Your  nerves  are 
crying  out  for  rest,  and  you  give  them  head- 
ache tablets  and  higher  mathematics.  Your 
brain  is  begging  for  change,  for  fresh  air,  and 


THE  LESSON  SIMPSON  LEARNED.  67 

hearty  sport,  and  long  sound  slumber ;  and 
you  are  answering  its  entreaties  with  coffee 
and  astronomy. 

"  Young  man,  life  is  not  to  be  lived  in  that 
way.  There  is  room  in  a  year  for  a  year's 
work,  and  no  more.  If  you  strive  to  squeeze 
more  in,  something  must  go  out,  and  that 
something  is  a  priceless  thing — your  health. 
You  are  shortening  your  time  on  earth,  young 
man,  far  more  than  you  are  shortening  your 
time  in  college.  A  living  dog  is  better  than  a 
dead  lion.  You  expect,  like  so  many  thou- 
sands, to  obtain  health  at  the  price  of  a  box  of 
pills,  but  it  costs  far  more  than  that.  Health 
costs  time  and  thought  and  energy  and  patience 
and  self-restraint,  and  perseverance  in  all  these 
things. 

"  I  will  give  you  no  dose,  young  man,  except 
this  mild  opiate  to  relieve  your  present  suffer- 
ings. If,  when  your  headache  has  passed 
away,  you  will  call  at  my  office  having  in  your 
pocket  a  letter  of  resignation  from  your  junior 
class,  and  in  your  heart  the  determination  to 
follow  the  laws  of  health  God  has  so  plainly 
written  on  the  very  nerves  and  fibres  of  your 
body,  I  will  help  you  to  lay  down  a  daily 
regimen  that  will  add  many  years  to  your  life, 
as  well  as  unmeasured  happiness  and  useful- 
ness. Good-day." 


68  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

And  what  did  young  Simpson  think  about 
this  frank  prescription  of  the  doctor's  ?  All  I 
know  is  that  he  is  no  longer  a  member  of  the 
class  of  '01  in  Solvary  College. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   ETHICS   OF   QUOTATION   MARKS. 

of  my  pupils  once  ordered  a  trans- 
lation of  a  Greek  classic  through  a 
bookseller,  telling  him  that  I  ap- 
proved the  use  of  translations  in  the 
preparation  of  lessons.  Afterward  the  book- 
seller came  to  me  in  innocent  astonishment, 
and  asked  if  that  thing  were  so !  He  should 
have  known  that  a  person  mean  enough  to  lie 
to  me  in  the  recitation  room,  would  be  mean 
enough  to  lie  about  me  outside  of  it. 

To  all  young  people  whose  consciences  are 
not  delicate,  the  school  and  the  college  offer 
innumerable  temptations  to  dishonesty.  If 
virtue  could  be  taught  as  we  teach  rhetoric, 
at  the  entrance  to  every  course  of  study  would 
soon  be  placed  a  term  devoted  to  the  Ethics 
of  Quotation  Marks.  And  that  term's  drill 
would  be  wisely  spent  in  the  impression  of 
this  one  truth :  "  Every  quotation  that  is  not 
enclosed  in  quotation  marks  is  a  lie." 

In  literary  societies  amazed  teachers  some- 
times hear  their  pupils  reading,  as  their  own, 

69 


70  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

essays  which  Emerson  might  have  written, 
but  would  surely  know  how  to  pronounce,  if 
he  had  written !  I  once  listened  to  a  very 
philosophical  dissertation  on  Goethe's  genius, 
whose  author  '(?)  constantly  referred  to  the 
subject  of  his  paper  as  "  Goth."  In  another 
instance  I  began  seriously  to  doubt  a  pupil's 
authorship  of  a  very  excellent  paper  when  he 
read,  in  starting,  the  title:  "United  States, 
Mineral  Resources  of  ! " 

A  scholar  should  be  taught  early  that  it 
requires  more  smartness  to  steal  successfully 
—if  it  may  be  called  success — any  composition 
whatever,  than  to  write  the  original  article 
itself.  If  your  ordinary  talk  is  full  of  deep 
thought,  expressed  in  classic  phrase,  replete 
with  learned  allusions,  then  you  may  borrow 
from  great  writers  without  giving  credit,  and 
defy  detection.  But,  then,  it  would  not  be 
necessary  !  Your  every  common  word  betrays 
you,  if  you  steal  from  any  better  writer  than 
yourself. 

You  would  not  trade  noses  with  some  one 
and  appear  in  public  expecting  that  the  change 
would  not  be  noted  by  your  friends ;  yet  you 
present  as  the  product  of  your  own  brains  an 
essay  out  of  harmony  with  your  every  habit 
of  interest,  thought,  and  expression.  Why  do 
you  not  bethink  yourself  that  your  friends  are 


THE  ETHICS  OF  QUOTATION  MARKS.          71 

far  better  acquainted  with  your  brain  than 
with  your  nose  ? 

"  Ah,  but,"  it  is  often  said,  "  every  thought 
has  been  expressed  already,  and  there  is  no 
chance  for  originality."  Then  there  is  a  chance 
for  honesty  in  the  use  of  quotation  marks.  A 
young  writer  should  begin  with  compilations, 
—historical,  biographical,  or  scientific;  only 
let  them  be  compilations, — the  fruit,  that  is,  of 
wide  reading, — and  call  them  compilations, 
stating  the  sources  of  information.  He  will  be 
ready  for  true  original  writing  just  as  soon  as  he 
begins  to  see  and  think  for  himself,  and  learns 
that  the  honest  expression  of  any  individuality 
is  always  rare,  valuable,  and  interesting. 

One  who  is  in  the  habit  of  examining  the 
second-hand  copies  of  Xenophon,  Caesar,  Vir- 
gil and  such  authors  found  piled  on  the  dusty 
corner-shelves  of  most  book  stores,  will  soon 
become  familiar  with  a  habit  widely  in  vogue 
among  college  students, — at  least  among  that 
portion  of  them  who  sell  their  old  books. 
These  thumb-marked,  dog-eared  volumes  are 
almost  invariably  black  with  lead-pencil  trans- 
lations written  between  the  Greek  and  Latin 
lines, — translations  often  ludicrously  false,  but 
showing,  the  most  correct  of  them,  the  false- 
ness of  the  one  who  wrote  them. 

Scholars   who  would   probably  consider  it 


72  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

dishonorable  to  use  an  interlinear,  thus  make 
their  own  interlinear  at  their  rooms,  and  re- 
cite, forsooth,  by  the  easy  process  of  trans- 
lating their  own  crabbed  lead-pencil  marks. 
Across  every  such  deception-stained  page  there 
is  written  in  invisible  ink  one  very  uncompli- 
mentary word  of  three  letters.  The  fire  of  an 
uneasy  conscience  will  make  the  invisible  ink 
very  plain,  sometimes,  and  the  little  word  will 
glow  angrily  -out  through  all  the  lead-pencil 
marks. 

Probably  the  most  disheartening,  sickening 
experience  of  a  teacher's  life  is  the  discovery 
of  cheating  at  examinations.  This  discovery 
is  perfectly  easy,  to  a  teacher  of  any  experi- 
ence. You  may  have  a  whole  volume  on  your 
boot,  easily  read  when  your  legs  are  crossed ; 
your  cuffs  may  epitomize  the  entire  work  of 
the  term ;  your  writing  tablet  may  be  inter- 
leaved with  condensed  information ;  you  may 
get  a  chance  to  copy  half  the  book  in  the 
teacher's  absence  from  the  room ;  your  pocket 
may  be  full  of  crumpled  but  significant  bits 
of  paper;  your  neighbor's  work  may  be  in 
plain  sight  and  you  may  appropriate  half  of 
it, — the  teacher  need  be  on  the  lookout  for 
none  of  these  or  a  thousand  other  tricks.  If 
you  have  been  reciting  to  him,  he  needs  no 
examination  to  tell  him  what  you  know,  and 


THE  ETHICS   OF  QUOTATION  MARKS.          73 

your  brilliant,  false  paper  has  only  been  a  test 
of  your  honesty,  wherein  you  have  miserably 
failed. 

It  is  often  exceedingly  difficult  to  know 
when  it  is  best  to  deal  openly  with  transgress- 
ors in  this  matter,  and  when  a  reform  can  be 
brought  about  by  quieter  methods.  I  once 
had  a  young  girl  in  my  class  who  persisted  in 
the  boldest  cheating,  again  and  again,  until  I 
sent  her  off  into  the  college  library  to  work 
out  her  papers  by  herself.  Those  papers  were 
uniformly  abominable,  and  never  of  passing 
grade !  The  same  appeal,  on  the  contrary,  to 
a  young  man's  honor,  once  brought  a  paper 
more  audaciously  and  manifestly  obtained  by 
cheating  than  ever  before.  Many  a  scholar 
has  chuckled  over  the  thought  that  he  has 
successfully  deceived  his  teacher,  while  that 
teacher  was  praying  earnestly  for  wisdom  to 
make  no  false  step  but  to  do  what  might  be 
best  to  bring  him  back  to  honesty  and  honor. 

Yes,  and  what  if  no  one  ever  finds  it  out  ? 
Teachers  have  far  too  little  time,  to  waste  it 
in  seeking  out  faults  that  are  not  forced  upon 
their  attention.  You  may  successfully  cheat 
your  teacher.  Is  there  not  One  who  cannot 
be  cheated  ? 

Your  conscience  can  never  be  too  delicate 
for  manliness  in  this  matter.  I  like  to  hear  a 


UNIVERSITY 


74  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

scholar,  when  he  translates  a  sentence  as  the 
editor  translates  it,  laugh  and  say  "  Notes ! " 
in  a  half-apologetic  way.  I  like  to  see  a 
scholar,  when  at  the  blackboard,  turn  his  back, 
impolitely  but  honestly,  on  his  classmate  and 
his  classmate's  work.  I  like  to  be  asked  for 
permission  even  to  borrow  a  penknife,  in  the 
course  of  an  examination.  I  like  to  see 
scholars  leave  their  books  at  home  on  exami- 
nation day,  and  come  without  voluminous 
wrappings  of  shawl  and  overcoat.  I  like  to 
see  papers  turned  face  down,  when  written, 
not  face  up,  ready  for  neighborly  exchange  of 
information.  I  like  to  have  scholars  come 
honestly  to  me,  as  one  or  two  have  come,  and 
ask  me  if  I  approve  the  use  of  translations 
at  home,  and  written  original  translations 
brought  into  the  classroom,  and  promise  to 
abide  by  my  decision.  One  cannot  be  too  sen- 
sitive in  avoiding  the  very  appearance  of  what 
is  dishonorable. 

Let  us  bejourselves.  Any  dishonest  addition 
is  aTloss.  Let  us  be  willing  to  be  held  mediocre 
rather  than  be  sinful.  A  "  pony  "  will  carry 
us  straight  to  sorrow.  A  "  key  "  will  open  the 
door  to  shame.  Our  interlineations  here  mean 
dark  interlinings  in  the  record  above.  Let  us 
be  ourselves,  and  when  we  use  what  is  not  our 
own,  let  us  never  forget  the  quotation  marks. 


CHAPTER  XIY. 

HOW  SCHOLARS  MAY  IMPROVE  THEIR 
TEACHERS. 

genial  Dr.  Trumbull  makes,  some- 
where, this  neat  point :  Suppose,  he 
says,  that  one  man  is  thirsty.  You 
have  your  scholar.  Another  man 
brings  a  bucket  of  water.  You  have  your 
teacher.  But  that  is  not  all.  The  thirsty  man 
is  not  a  whit  better  off  until  in  some  way  the 
water  is  inside  the  man.  The  question  is,  as 
Dr.  Trumbull  says,  how  to  get  some  of  the 
bucket's  brim  fulness  into  the  man's  brim-empti- 
ness. 

Now  I  want  to  say,  students,  that  for  every 
scholar  I  have  had  who  failed  to  be  taught  be- 
cause he  was  not  bright  enough  to  understand, 
I  have  had  ten  who  failed  to  be  taught  because 
they  and  I  never  got  within  reaching  distance 
of  each  other.  Their  lips  kept  away  from  the 
bucket.  • 

Sometimes  it  was  my  fault.  Sometimes  it 
was  because  they  came  with  brains  smothered 
by  unventilated  rooms,  or  dulled  with  the 

75 


76  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

stagnant  blood  of  unexercised  muscles,  so  that 
they  were  too  stupid  to  put  their  lips  to  the 
bucket.  Sometimes  they  really  did  not  find 
out  in  what  way  I  was  trying  to  help  them,  so 
that  they  might  respond,  or  their  attention 
was  called  away  entirely  from  the  work  in 
which  alone,  just  then,  I  was  trying  to  meet 
them. 

Do  you  want  to  know  what  a  teacher  feels 
like  when  he  discovers  that  all  his  attempts  at 
helping  his  scholars  are  meeting  with  no  re- 
sponse? He  feels  like  an  usher  who  walks 
the  whole  length  of  the  church,  and  turns  to 
find  himself  ushering  nobody.  He  feels  like 
the  preacher  who  talked  so  eloquently  to  a 
congregation  of  deaf-mutes ;  like  the  near- 
sighted man  who  bowed  to  the  dummy  in  the 
shop- window.  It  is  like  walking  up  that  step 
after  the  last,  which  isn't  there. 

Every  teacher  ought  to  know  this — that  be- 
fore he  can  teach  he  must  become  the  scholar ; 
enter,  that  is,  into  the  scholar's  needs,  his 
powers  and  attainments.  And  just  as  truly, 
every  scholar  should  know  that  before  he  can 
learn  he  must  become  the  teacher  ;  enter,  that 
is,  into  the  teacher's  plans  and  desires,  and  en- 
deavor to  work  with  him. 

Obviously,  one  of  the  most  important  fac- 
tors in  studying  is  the  teacher ;  but  students 


SCHOLARS  MAY  IMPROVE  THEIR  TEACHERS.    77 

are  very  likely  to  study  with  no  reference  to 
their  instructor,  taking  it  for  granted  either 
that  he  is  all  right  or  that  he  is  mostly  wrong, 
and  not  stopping  to  think  about  their  relation 
to  him.  Much  of  the  fruitfulness  of  this  re- 
lation, however,  depends  upon  the  scholar; 
and  though  young  America  prides  himself  on 
being  business-like,  yet  he  usually  commits  the 
unpardonable  business  error  of  drawing  from 
his  schooling  a  dividend  far  lower  than  it  is 
willing  to  pay. 

Teachers  accept  the  principle  that  the  poor 
scholar  is  the  opportunity  of  their  art.  In  the 
same  way,  many  and  many  a  time,  the  poor 
teacher  is  the  scholar's  opportunity,  and  waits 
but  a  helpful  touch  from  his  pupil  to  flash  into 
eager  life.  How  may  it  be  done  ? 

First.  If  you  do  not  want  a  machine- 
teacher,  you  must  see  to  it  that  the  mere  ma- 
chinery of  teaching  does  not  require  all  of  his 
energy.  Suppose  a  captain  in  battle  should  be 
obliged  to  stop  and  give  instructions  as  to  the 
meaning  of  "  right  wheel "  and  "  charge  bayo- 
nets "  and  "  ground  arms  "  !  He  could  not  do 
much  fighting  with  that  company.  Many  a 
time  I  have  planned  a  charge  along  the  whole 
line  for  the  recitation  hour,  and  have  been  com- 
pelled in  chagrin  to  spend  that  hour  in  hum- 
drum drill  in  the  manual  of  arms,  in  the  ele- 


78  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

ments  of  the  work,  which  should  have  been 
mastered  in  the  study-room.  To  put  it  in 
brief,  no  preparation  by  the  scholar,  no  in- 
spiration from  the  teacher. 

Second.  Did  you  ever  think  that  you  can 
help  your  teacher  by  getting  help  from  him  ? 
You  are  nonplussed  by  a  problem.  Do  not 
get  a  classmate  to  aid  you,  or  fail  on  it  in  reci- 
tation. Go  to  the  teacher.  While  he  shows 
you  the  solution,  you  will  show  him  that  you 
are  in  earnest  in  your  studies,  and  that  you  do 
not  consider  him  a  taskmaster,  but  a  friend. 
Oh,  those  chance  conversations  with  one's 
scholars,  wherein  the  bright  young  folk  make 
it  clear  that  their  studies  have  entered  the 
charmed  circle  of  their  unforced  interest ! 
How,  forever  after,  they  lift  the  classroom 
work  with  those  scholars  safely  above  the  line 
of  drudgery ! 

Third.  You  can  readily  imagine  the  feel- 
ings of  a  bride  when  the  groom  saunters  in 
half  an  hour  late  to  the  wedding.  By  the 
same  token  the  teacher  can  guess  that  you  are 
not  passionately  in  love  with  his  study.  Nor 
would  a  despondent  bearing  and  funereal  coun- 
tenance on  the  part  of  the  aforesaid  bride- 
groom make  the  matter  much  better.  Com- 
pliment your  teacher  with  promptness  and 
with  cheerful  alacrity  of  mien,  and,  my  word 


SCHOLARS  MAY  IMPROVE  THEIR  TEACHERS.    79 

for  it,  your  compliment  will  pay  you  a  good 
interest. 

Fourth.  Preachers  say  that  they  often 
have  this  experience :  They  prepare  a  sermon 
with  especial  care  to  meet  the  needs  of  some 
one  member  of  their  congregation,  and  rise  in 
pulpit  on  Sunday  to  find  that  person's  pew 
vacant.  Their  disappointment  and  blank  per- 
plexity are  no  more  than  what  many  a  teacher 
has  felt,  when,  after  he  has  planned  a  special 
exercise  or  a  whole  recitation  to  meet  the 
needs  of  some  especial  scholar,  he  sees  that 
scholar's  place  empty.  That  sort  of  thing 
soon  takes  the  life  out  of  a  teacher. 

Fifth.  Every  one  knows  that  among  all  the 
incidents  of  social  life  nothing  is  quite  so  ex- 
asperating as  to  invite  some  one  to  a  party, 
and  never  receive  a  reason  for  his  absence. 
This  is  true  of  any  social  engagement.  Now 
if  scholars  want  to  get  the  most  out  of  their 
teachers,  they  must  remember  that  those 
teachers  have  the  same  general  set  of  feelings 
as  other  people. 

Sixth.  A  teacher  is  in  many  ways  as  de- 
pendent for  enthusiasm  upon  his  class  as  an 
orator  upon  his  audience.  If  an  orator  gets  a 
poor  audience,  it's  like  trying  to  strike  fire 
out  of  putty ;  but  a  responsive  audience 
kindles  the  orator.  In  recitation,  then,  be 


80  HOW  TO   STUDY. 

sympathetic ;  be  full  of  interest.  Put  yourself 
in  the  receptive  mood.  In  the  Latin  class  be- 
come a  Roman  ;  in  the  geometry  class,  a  tri- 
angle. Ask  intelligent  questions,  and  many 
of  them.  Looking  back  over  my  classes,  I  can 
recall,  in  each,  one  or  two  uplifted  hands  and 
snapping  fingers  which  have  pointed  me  to 
success  in  those  classes,  and  I  thank  them  for 
it.  And  listen,  without  whispering.  You 
have  joined  hands,  have  you  not,  to  receive  a 
current  from  an  electric  battery?  What 
happened  when  any  one  dropped  hands? 
Why,  just  what  happens  when  one  whispers 
to  his  neighbor  in  the  classroom.  No  more 
enthusiasm.  No  more  electricity. 

Seventh.  Don't  be  discouraged  if  your 
teacher  happens  to  be  cross.  Be  patient  with 
him.  You  are  probably  suffering  for  the  sins 
of  the  class  just  before  tyou,  and  upon  your 
good  behavior  depends  the  comfort  of  the  class 
to  come  after  you.  I  once  heard  a  member  of 
one  of  my  classes  whisper  to  an  incoming 
scholar,  "  He's  cross  to-day.  Look  out ! "  I 
am  sure  that  next  class  was  astonished  at  my 
good  humor.  But  teachers  are  seldom  thus 
warned,  and  often  unconsciously  make  one 
class  suffer  for  the  poor  lesson  or  bad  behavior 
of  its  predecessor. 

Eighth.     You   cannot   dampen   a   teacher's 


SCHOLARS  MAY  IMPROVE  THEIR  TEACHERS.    81 


ardor  more  quickly  than  by  telling  him 
frankly,  as  some  have  kindly  told  me,  that 
you  don't  like  his  study,  and  never  will  !  Ex- 
press appreciation  of  your  teacher's  work. 
Don't  be  afraid  of  making  him  conceited. 
There  is  an  infinity  of  things  by  which  a 
teacher  is  made  humble,  and  kept  so.  But  if 
he  perceives  in  his  scholars  no  more  apprecia- 
tion of  his  work  than  a  stone-mason  in  the 
stone  he  carves,  he  will  do  stone-mason's  work, 
no  more. 

And  lastly,  you  will  greatly  invigorate  your 
teacher  by  showing  a  willingness  to  do  more 
work  than  is  required  —  outside  work.  When 
one  has  an  appetite  for  a  thing,  one  has  to 
guard  against  over-eating.  I  judge  by  this 
test  the  true  student,  always.  Where  are  the 
scholars  who  study  beyond  the  stint,  who  read 
all  the  books  in  the  library  on  the  subject  they 
are  studying,  who  require  the  bit  and  curb 
rather  than  the  spur  ?  I  have  known  them, 
and  more  in  number  than  you  would  think, 
and  bless  them  every  time  I  think  of  them,  for 
their  helpful  enthusiasm,  at  which,  more  than 
once,  my  own  has  been  rekindled. 

And  now  I  may  sum  it  all  up  in  this  sen- 
tence from  the  great  emperor,  Marcus  Aurelius 
Antoninus  :  "  We  are  made  for  co-operation, 
like  feet,  like  hands,  like  eyelids,  like  the  rows 


SOW  TO  STUDY. 


of  the  upper  and  lower  teeth."   A  good  teacher 
is  in  great  part  made  by  his  scholars,  simply    / 
because     good    teaching     is     a     co-operative  J 
process. 


CHAPTER  XY. 

PUT  YOUR  PLAY  INTO  YOUR  WORK. 

WILL  give  you  a  short  chapter  on  a 
long  theme. 

I  am  writing  this  at  the  end  of 
vacation.  The  red  cheeks,  bright 
eyes,  brown  skins  and  hearty  laughs  of  the 
scholars  everywhere  tell  me  that  vacation  play 
has  done  its  appointed  work.  But  how  hard 
it  is  to  leave  the  play,  and  go  back  to  work 
again!  My  dear  students,  don't  leave  the 
play! 

"No  work?"  you  cry  in  astonishment.  I 
didn't  say  that.  Put  your  play  into  your 
work.  Your  schooling  will  be  a  failure  other- 
wise. 

Let  me  tell  you  something.  No  work  is 
well  done  until  it  is  easily  done.  The  might- 
iest machine  I  ever  saw,  with  all  its  ponder- 
ous beams  and  wheels,  distributing  water 
through  hundreds  of  miles  of  pipe  over  the 
great  city  of  Chicago,  caused  not  so  much  jar 
and  confusion  in  its  working  as  my  chain  pump. 

I  made  an  engagement  once  to  meet  a  cer- 

83 


84  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

tain  student  for  recitation  during  recreation 
hours.  I  apologized  when  I  thought,  but  he 
said  it  made  no  difference,  as  he  never  took 
any  recreation.  He  spoke  the  truth,  and  I 
fear  he  was  proud  of  the  statement.  But  I 
wanted  to  say  to  him,  "My  dear  boy,  you 
may  study  ten  hours  a  day.  Let  me  assure 
you  that  you  could  do  much  better  work  with 
eight  hours'  study  and  two  hours'  play.  You 
lack  a  certain  alertness  and  vigor  of  intellect 
which  a  proper  amount  of  sport  gives.  It  is  a 
sort  of  mental  poise,  an  ease  and  balance  of 
the  mind,  which  renders  all  its  operations 
pleasurable." 

It's  a  serious  thing  to  become  incapable  of 
sport !  I  should  like  to  write  on  every  school 
desk  .these  words :  "  No  work  is  mastered  until 
it  has  become  play ! "  Is  the  musician  satis- 
fied while  eyes  must  follow  fingers,  while  he 
must  glance  anxiously  at  every  note,  and 
tremble  at  every  difficult  passage  ?  Not  until 
the  execution  of  the  piece  has  become  a  sec- 
ond nature  is  the  "  performer  "  a  musician. 

When  is  a  page  of  German  learned  ?  When 
it  can  be  read  as  promptly  as  English.  When 
is  a  lesson  in  grammar  mastered  ?  When  you 
can  talk  as  glibly  about  the  parts  of  the  sen- 
tence as  about  the  pictures  on  the  wall.  When 
have  you  solved  a  problem  in  arithmetic? 


PUT  YOUR   PLAY  INTO   YOUR    WORK.         85 

"When  you  can  walk  through  it  from  step  to 
step  with  as  easy  assurance  as  through  a  house 
you  have  lived  in  all  your  life.  When  are  you 
ready  for  an  examination  ?  When  you  are 
prepared  for  an  oral  examination  as  rapid  as 
your  teacher  can  talk.  The  secret  of  scholar- 
ship is  patient,  persistent,  dogged  review,  until 
the  task  becomes  play. 

One  of  the  teacher's  greatest  joys  is  to 
make  a  scholar  realize  in  his  own  experience 
the  blessedness  and  freedom  of  thoroughness. 
The  vast  majority  of  scholars  are  constantly 
weighed  nearly  to  earth  with  the  burden  of 
tasks  half  finished — tasks  which  the  true 
scholar  has  so  thoroughly  done  at  the  right 
time  that  the  result  has  become  part  of  his 
mental  fibre,  no  greater  clog  than  his  brain 
itself. 

Your  long,  happy  vacations  have  taught  you, 
I  trust,  how  to  play.  Now  let  the  play  ele- 
ment go  into  your  study.  You  have  taken  a 
long  step  toward  the  Christ-ideal  when  you 
not  only  carry  His  spirit  of  helpful  earnestness 
into  your  play,  but  put  His  grand  serenity  and 
cheerful  equipoise  into  your  work. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

GET    ONE   DAY'S    WORK    AHEAD. 

"  NE  of  the  very  brightest  little  books 
ever  written  is  a  collection  of  anec- 
dotes concerning  Socrates,  written 
by  his  friend  Xenophon.  In  it 
Xenophon  tells  the  following  story  of  the 
good  old  Greek  philosopher. 

Socrates  once  heard  a  man  groaning  over 
the  prospect  of  a  walk  from  Athens  to  Olym- 
pia,  to  attend  the  great  festival  there.  "  Why," 
said  Socrates  to  him,  "  you  would  walk  about 
a  great  deal  if  you  stayed  at  home.  Put  all 
those  little  walks  together.  They  will  easily 
carry  you  to  Olympia.  You  will  merely  walk 
about  a  little,  then  dine ;  then  walk  about  a 
little  more,  and  go  to  bed  and  rest.  You'll 
have  no  trouble,  my  friend,  if  you  only  start 
in  time,  so  that  you  can  make  each  day's  jour- 
ney of  comfortable  length.  It's  very  weari- 
some to  start  one  day  late,  and  be  compelled 
to  lengthen  out  forced  journeys  ;  but,  my  dear 
sir,  you'll  be  surprised  to  see  what  a  sense  of 
ease  and  leisure  you  will  gain  by  starting  one 


GET  ONE   DAY'S   WORK  AHEAD.  87 

day  too  early.  It's  better  to  hurry  at  the 
beginning  than  the  end." 

And  now,  are  not  all  students  going  to 
Olympia?  The  contests  there  will  be  more 
difficult  than  they  realize,  the  prizes  more 
glorious  than  they  can  imagine ;  and  the  ad- 
vice of  wise  old  Socrates  is  not  a  whit  spoiled 
by  its  age  of  twenty-two  centuries. 

It  is  a  fact,  I  think,  that  most  scholars  are 
perpetually  in  a  hurry.  They  get  the  lesson 
which  is  to  be  recited  after  dinner  just  before 
dinner;  they  take  home  their  books  at  night 
to  get  the  first  morning  lesson.  They  seem  to 
live,  mentally,  from  hand  to  mouth,  like  veri- 
table intellectual  tramps.  They  seem  to  parody 
the  Bible  sentence,  and  declare,  "  Sufficient 
unto  the  day  is  the  study  thereof." 

If  this  is  true  of  you,  look  out !  For  I  tell 
you  there  are  few  things  that  harm  more  than 
worry.  And  there  are  few  things  so  sure  to 
cause  worry  as  hurry.  Watch,  and  see  if  I'm 
not  right ! 

Take  Socrates'  advice.  Put  your  hurry 
where  it  will  do  some  good — at  the  beginning. 
Get  one  day^s  work  ahead,  and  keep  there  ! 
Do  not  reject  the  plan  for  fear  of  forgetting 
your  lesson.  If  a  lesson  will  not  keep  two 
days,  how  will  it  keep  till  examination  time  ? 

"  But  this  plan  does  not  make  my  work  any 


88  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

less  !  "  "Who  said  it  did  ?  But  do  you  not  see 
a  difference  between  driving  your  work,  and 
letting  it  drive  you?  between  racked  nerves 
and  an  even  temper?  between  anxiety  and 
peace?  between  fagged  bodies  and  fresh  ones? 
The  true  scholar  works  quietly,  serenely 
looking  ahead,  eager  at  the  start,  never  flur- 
ried on  thejourney.  And  is  not  that  the  way 
God  works  ?  If  I  mistake  not,  the  oak-tree 
studies  ahead,  or  it  would  never  make  its 
acorns,  and  every  summer,  all  over  the  world, 
reads  a  good  way  ahead  in  God's  great  year- 
book. 

"  Are  you  in  earnest?  Seize  this  very  minute  ! 
What  you  can  do,  or  dream  you  can,  begin  it ! 
Boldness  has  genius,  power,  and  magic  in  it. '  ' 


CHAPTEK  XVII. 

ABSORBING   INFORMATION. 

KNOW  a  man  who  could  walk  through 
the  main  street  of  a  city  perfectly 
strange  to  him,  and  at  the  end  of 
the  way  you  would  take  him  for  an 
old  inhabitant.  He  would  know  the  chief 
industries  of  the  town,  its  moral  and  social 
and  financial  condition,  the  names  of  its  prom- 
inent merchants  and  pastors,  the  prevailing 
politics,  the  sentiment  in  regard  to  the  liquor 
question,  the  efficiency  of  the  public  schools, 
the  names  of  the  daily  papers,  the  geological 
strata  beneath,  the  chief  products  of  the  sur- 
rounding farms, — he  could  even  direct  a  man 
who  had  lost  his  way.  That  is  Kichard 
Heady  wit. 

Among  my  acquaintances  is  another  gentle- 
man who  could  walk  along  the  same  thorough- 
fare, and  at  the  end  of  it  be  obliged  to  inquire 
his  way  back.  He  would  not  know  the  points 
of  the  compass  if  it  was  a  cloudy  day.  He 
would  not  know  where  to  find  a  single  store 
in  town,  or  any  public  building.  He  would 

89 


90  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

have  no  idea  whatever  of  the  kind  of  dwelling- 
houses  or  the  character  of  the  people  or 
the  nature  of  their  occupations.  As  soon  as, 
barely  reaching  the  station  in  time,  he  hurried 
on  board  the  train,  he  would  be  obliged  to  ask 
his  neighbor  what  town  they  had  just  left. 
That  is  Simon  Slowboy. 

Now  neither  Richard  Readywit  nor  Simon 
Slowboy  made  any  exertion  in  the  walk  sup- 
posed. They  simply  abandoned  themselves  to 
the  habits  they  had  formed ;  and  Simon  could 
no  more  gather  all  this  information  than  Rich- 
ard could  help  gathering  it.  A  barber  was 
once  eulogizing  a  young  friend  of  mine  whom 
the  barber  considered  a  prodigy  of  learning. 
"Why,  sar,"  he  explained,  flourishing  his 
razor,  "  his  brain's  jes'  like  a  sponge.  It 
soaks  up  eVryting  it  touches."  That  is  true 
of  some  men.  They  seem  to  absorb  informa- 
tion. 

Lay  that  piece  of  blotting  paper  upon  an 
ink-blot.  It  lies  there  quietly.  It  is  doing 
nothing.  It  is  not  going  after  the  ink;  the 
ink  is  coming  to  it.  Make  another  ink-blot 
and  put  this  piece  of  calendered  paper  upon  it. 
The  ink  is  not  absorbed  at  all,  but  only  spread 
more  widely.  There  is  a  wonderful  power, 
called  capillary  attraction,  which  lifts  liquids 
into  small  vessels  without  any  force  but  the 


ABSORBING   INFORMATION.  91 

liking  of  the  liquid  for  the  sides  of  the  tubes. 
Put  a  glass  tube  into  water,  and  I  defy  you 
to  keep  the  water  inside  the  tube  down  at 
the  level  of  the  water  outside  it.  The  tube 
did  not  seek  the  water,  but  the  water  rose  in 
the  tube.  Of  course,  if  you  stop  the  mouth  of 
the  tube,  or  if  the  tube  is  exceedingly  small, 
the  experiment  will  fail. 

And  that  is  the  trouble  with  the  calendered 
paper.  The  porous  blotter  is  filled  with 
thousands  of  these  little  lifting  tubes ;  but  in 
the  calendered  paper  their  mouths  are  all 
glazed  over.  The  calendered  paper  is  very 
smooth,  shiny,  and  elegant ;  but  it  won't  ab- 
sorb ink.  That's  why,  my  readers,  a  good 
many  folks  cannot  absorb  information :  they 
are  supercalendered  with  pride.  They  have 
an  idea  that  it  is  vulgar  to  ask  questions,  and 
quite  the  proper  thing  to  pretend  to  have  been 
born  into  the  world  a  complete  encyclopaedia 
brought  down  to  date.  Of  course  no  man  can 
absorb  information  who  has  all  his  question- 
pores  glazed  over  with  conceit. 

And  then  many  people  that  are  really  hum- 
ble enough  about  it,  lack  this  power  of  ab- 
sorbing information  because  they  have  never 
trained  themselves  to  it ;  because,  however 
automatic  it  may  become  after  a  while,  it  is 
not  so  at  the  beginning.  I  suppose  no  man 


92  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

can  see  so  many  little  things  at  once,  and  see 
them  so  accurately,  as  a  sleight-of-hand  man. 
His  eye  photographs,  at  a  mere  glance,  ob- 
jects, persons,  and  acts,  down  to  the  finest  de- 
tails, where  our  dull  vision  sees  only  the  out- 
lines. Do  you  know  how  he  does  it  ?  This,  I 
am  told,  was  a  method  of  training  adopted  by 
the  renowned  prestidigitator,  Hermann.  He 
walked  rapidly  past  a  shop  window,  glancing 
in  as  he  walked,  and  noting  as  many  objects 
as  he  could.  Then  he  verified  his  impressions. 
Then  he  took  a  census  of  another  window.  So 
he  practised  until,  from  the  ability  to  grasp  in- 
distinctly only  a  few  objects  at  a  glance,  he 
gained  the  power  of  instantly  forming  vivid 
mental  pictures  of  large  groups  of  objects 
most  diverse. 

In  some  such  way  these  people  who  absorb 
information  readily  have  trained  themselves. 
The  first  time  Richard  Readywit  passed 
through  a  strange  town  he  probably  noted 
only  the  names  of  the  streets  and  the  kinds  of 
shops  he  was  passing.  But  the  noting  of  these 
things  once,  made  him  more  sensitive  to  note 
them  the  next  time  ;  so  that  in  the  next  town 
he  visited  he  had  some  attention  to  spare  for 
other  matters.  And  thus  his  power  of  com- 
prehension grew  with  use. 

Of  course  there  can  be  no  absorbing  of  in- 


ABSORBING  INFORMATION.  93 

formation  about  a  thing,  however,  without  a 
little  knowledge  of  the  thing  to  start  with. 
Set  a  ready-witted  drummer  down  in  a  strange 
hotel,  and  in  half  an  hour  he  will  know  more 
about  the  affairs  of  the  town  than  the  average 
reporter ;  but  if  he  is  not  a  religious  man,  he  / 
will  not  know  much  about  its  church  life ;  and  j^ 
if  he  is  not  somewhat  versed  in  geology,  he 
will  not  know  anything  about  the  geological 
strata  beneath.  Put  the  best  blotting  paper 
half  an  inch  away  from  the  edge  of  the  big- 
gest ink-spot,  and  there  will  be  no  absorbing 
of  ink.  There  must  come  in  a  little  funda- 
mental knowledge  to  impel  the  most  absorb- 
ent mind  toward  a  subject ;  to  furnish,  as  it 
were,  the  point  of  contact. 

But,  at  the  start,  I  forgot.  You  might  do 
something  to  the  glass  tube  which  would  pre- 
vent the  water  from  rising  in  it.  Grease  it. 
However  much  capillary  attraction  there 
might  be  between  the  water  and  the  sides  of 
the  tube,  the  water  has  no  liking  for  the  oil, 
and  will  not  go  near  it.  That  furnishes  the 
last  point  in  my  list.  No  man  can  absorb  in- 
formation if  he  hates  information.  If  he  has 
smeared  his  whole  mind  over  with  a  slimy, 
lazy  dislike  for  new  ideas  and  fresh  knowl- 
edge, you  may  soak  him  in  notions  and  learn- 
ing for  a  twelvemonth,  and  he'll  absorb  none 


94  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

of  it.  But  let  him  love  to  learn ;  let  him 
reach  out  eagerly,  hungrily,  after  mental  food, 
and  he'll  •swallow  it  as  rapidly  and  digest  it  as 
thoroughly  as  healthy  children  absorb  bread 
and  butter. 

To  sum  up.  Absorbing  information  is  a  fine 
art,  in  which  any  one  may  become  proficient 
who  throws  away  his  pride,  gets  a  little  knowl- 
edge, and  trains  himself  patiently  and  lov- 
ingly. 


- 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

PUTTING    ONE'S    MIND    ON   IT. 

]ITPPOSE  that  when  you  wanted  to 
lift  a  dish  of  apples,  one  hand  should 
fly  to  your  pockets  and  the  other 
make  wild  gestures  in  the  air;  or 
suppose  that  when  you  desired  to  look  at  a 
friend  coming  toward  you,  one  eye  should 
scan  the  heavens  and  the  other  peruse  the 
ground ;  would  you  not  think  something  seri- 
ously wrong  with  you  ?  But  if,  when  you  sit 
down  to  study,  one  half  of  your  mind  flies  off 
to  the  playground  and  the  other  falls  to  be- 
laboring the  poor  teacher,  you  say  that  you 
cannot  "  concentrate  your  mind  "  ;  and  that's 
the  end  of  it.  Why,  my  dear  young  man,  my 
dear  young  woman,  that's  all  that  is  the  mat- 
ter with  the  insane  and  idiotic, — they  cannot 
control  their  minds  by  their  wills. 

Sitting  before  your  books,  you  first  estimate 
the  length  of  the  lesson — outrageously  long! 
Then  you  compare  it  with  yesterday's  lesson 
—teacher  is  becoming  more  unreasonable  every 
day!  Then  you  count  up  the  pages  left  to 

95 


96  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

study,  and  cipher  out  how  long  it  will  take  at 
three  pages  a  day.  No  need  of  going  so  fast. 
Then  you  wonder  if  George  has  his  lesson, 
and  ask  him.  He  hasn't.  Then  you  read  the 
lesson  over.  You  don't  understand  a  word  of 
it.  You  ask  George  if  he  understands  a  word 
of  it.  He  doesn't.  Then  you  count  up  the 
number  of  days  left  in  the  term.  Thirty-one 
days  and  six  hours  and  three-quarters.  You 
read  the  lesson  once  more — a  little  clearer. 
You  see  by  the  clock  that  you  have  been 
studying  half  an  hour.  You  ask  George  if  he 
has  to  study  his  lesson  half  an  hour.  He  does. 
You  read  the  lesson  once  more.  As  dark  as 
ever.  Discouraged,  you  draw  a  picture  of  the 
teacher — an  awful  picture,  with  horns.  By 
this  time  you  have  studied  an  hour,  and  that 
is  all  the  time  you  can  spend  on  this  lesson. 
Lesson's  too  long,  anyway. 

Of  course,  that  is  an  abominable  caricature 
of  the  way  you  study,  but  you  will  all  agree 
that  it's  a  pretty  fair  picture  of  the  way  most 
of  your  schoolmates  study.  Do  you  want  me 
to  give  you  some  hints  on  the  cure  of  mind- 
wandering?  I  shall,  whether  you  want  me 
to  or  not. 

Hint  First. — It  can't  be  cured  quickly.  You 
know  how  many  months  it  takes  a  baby  to 
control  its  swaying,  wandering  feet  ? 


PUTTING   ONE'S  MIND  ON  IT.  97 

Hint  Second. — You're  not  enough  in  earnest. 
If  you  ever,  by  and  by,  fall  in  love,  you  will 
come  to  know  what  concentration  of  mind 
means.  You  are  not  enough  in  love  with  your 
studies. 

Hint  Third. — The  very  next  time  you  are 
troubled  with  mind-wandering,  notice  what 
that  is  to  which  your  mind  has  strayed,  and 
straightway  reduce  it,  be  it  what  it  may,  to  a 
less  degree  of  prominence  in  your  lives.  Does 
your  mind  show  a  tendency  to  wander  into 
thoughts  of  the  next  game  of  ball,  or  that  ex- 
citing serial  story  ?  Then  choose  some  game 
and  some  story  less  exacting  in  its  interest. 
Do  thoughts  of  your  mates,  of  th6se  you  dis- 
like and  of  those  you  like  very  much  indeed, 
divert  your  studious  mind?  Then  you  must 
be  a  hermit  for  a  time,  or  you  will  never  be  a 
scholar. 

Hint  Fourth. — One  who  is  master  of  his 
mind  could  do  good  studying  in  the  midst  of  a 
nominating  convention,  but  that  would  be  a 
poor  place  to  cure  mind-wandering.  You 
wouldn't  try  to  break  in  a  colt  on  Broadway. 
Study  alone  as  much  as  possible.  If  nothing 
else  can  induce  you  to  withdraw  for  study  to 
a  quiet  nook,  do  as  Demosthenes  did ;  shave 
half  your  head,  and  thus  force  yourselves  out 
of  society.  I  have  seen  a  great  many  students, 


98  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

but  no  one  of  them  all  was  successful  who  pre- 
ferred to  study  with  some  one  else  to  help  look 
up  words  in  the  dictionary,  add  figures,  hint 
at  solutions,  and  suggest  translations.  Schol- 
ars do  not  grow  in  crowds.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  co-operative  studying  any  more  than 
co-operative  eating.  Whenever  two  people 
study  together,  one  is  a  student  and  the  other 
a  dummy.  Yet,  after  the  studying  has  been 
done,  companionship  is  of  the  highest  value. 
I  have  elsewhere  urged  you  always  to  review 
your  lessons  with  a  friend.  His  mind  has  seen 
what  you  have  missed.  His  questions  will 
develop  your  strength.  Your  discussions  will 
vivify  the  Whole.  The  scholar  grows  in  soli- 
tude, but  he  bears  fruit  in  a  crowd. 

Hint  Fifth. — Fix  a  time  and  place  for  the 
study  of  each  lesson.  A  horse,  set  for  a  few 
days  to  doing  certain  tasks  in  certain  places 
and  times,  soon  learns  to  do  them  without  the 
whip  and  rein.  Tasks  which,  to  the  irregular 
student's  bewildered  brain,  are  a  daily  worry, 
are  accomplished  almost  mechanically  by  a 
brain  methodically  used. 

Hint  Sixth. — Cultivate  regularity  in  all  the 
details  of  your  life,  as  well  as  studying.  Some 
people  think  that,  because  their  business  is  not 
playing,  or  eating,  or  letter- writing,  or  reading, 
or  talking  with  their  friends,  or  running  to  the 


PUTTING   ONE'S  MIND   ON  IT.  99 

post-office,  therefore  it  makes  no  difference 
when  they  do  these  things.  But  it  does.  You 
will  find  that  if  you  accustom  yourselves  to 
doing  all  things  at  all  times,  it  will  be  next  to 
impossible  for  you  to  do  merely  one  thing  at 
any  time.  You  will  want  to  study  at  one 
o'clock,  but  into  your  study  will  rush  reminis- 
cences of  the  walk  you  took  yesterday  at  that 
hour,  your  novel  of  the  day  before,  and  your 
lunch  of  the  day  before  that.  Perfect  system 
in  even  the  smallest  things, — that  is  one  secret 
of  the  power  of  concentration. 

Hint  Seventh. — Exercise.  Eat  properly. 
Dress  properly.  Take  fresh  air,  and  plenty 
of  it.  Who  could  train  his  mental  batteries 
accurately  on  a  problem  while  painfully  con- 
scious that  digestion  is  going  on,  while  his 
head  is  throbbing,  his  eye  smarting,  his  body 
languid  and  sick?  Get  your  body  to  leave 
your  mind  alone,  and  then  see  whether  you  can- 
not assume  command  of  your  mental  faculties. 

Hint  Eighth. — Don't  worry.  Keep  a  clear 
conscience.  Undertake  only  what  you  can  do 
thoroughly  and  on  time.  Leave  nothing  un- 
done to  haunt  all  your  working  hours.  A 
general  can  hardly  direct  his  troops  with  force 
against  an  enemy  in  front  while  he  has  several 
unconquered  regiments  of  foes  dodging  about 
in  his  rear. 


100  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

Hint  Ninth. — You  will  be  troubled  with 
mind- wandering  in  connection  with  the  studies 
you  like  the  least.  Have  you  ever  thought 
that  right  here  you  must  mass  your  powers, 
or  be  a  defeated  scholar?  For  the  scholar, 
the  thinker,  is  not  one  who  can  apply  his  mind 
to  that  only  to  which  it  naturally  turns,  but 
is  distinguished  from  the  common  herd  of 
brain-bearing  animals  chiefly  by  his  power  of 
deriving,  by  forceful  application  from  un- 
promising, stubborn,  and  unattractive  subjects, 
some  new  knowledge  and  blessing  for  mankind. 

Hint  Tenth,  and  last. — Persevere;  stick  to 
your  task  till  it  is  done.  Suppose  that  the 
moon  stood  over  New  York  harbor  at  this  in- 
stant, pulling  its  waters  toward  herself.  How 
long  would  it  be  before  the  pull  would  be  felt 
and  the  waters  rise  in  high  tide?  Even  if  all 
the  continents  were  out  of  the  way,  it  would 
be  six  hours.  Pull  that  table  toward  you.  It 
does  not  stir  instantly,  but  soon  it  does,  though 
you  pull  no  harder.  What  is  happening  dur- 
ing the  moon's  six  hours  or  your  instant  of 
waiting?  Power  is  overcoming  inertia.  Do 
you  not  know  that  there  is  inertia  in  mind  as 
well  as  matter  ?  Do  you  not  find  that  the 
true  start  in  studying  comes  some  time  after 
you  commence  ?  How  foolish  it  would  be  for 
the  moon,  after  six  hours'  pull,  to  let  go  and 


PUTTING   ONE'S  MIND   ON  IT.  101 

say  that  she  will  try  again  some  other  day ! 
Many  a  time  we  lose  our  grip  just  when  the 
intellectual  tide  is  ready  to  rise.     Let  us  finish^ 
one  thing  at  a  time. 

But  a  rule  that  is  good  for  all  occasions,  you 
know,  is  good  for  nothing.  Exceptions  prove 
the  rule,  and  there  is  an  exception  to  this. 
There  is  just  a  grain  of  truth  in  that  absurd 
old  proverb,  "A  watched  pot  never  boils." 
Sometimes  the  best  way  to  set  our  brains 
a-simmering  over  any  particular  fire  is  to  go 
off  and  forget  all  about  the  matter  for  a  sea- 
son. Too  long  thought  on  a  problem  dulls 
the  mind,  as  a  too  prolonged  gaze  at  any  ob- 
ject dims  the  eyes.  The  wise  student  will 
learn  the  value  of  intervals.  He  will  take 
lessons  from  the  farmer  in  the  rotation  of 
crops.  If  his  mind  has  become  weary  of 
raising  a  crop  of  figures,  he  will  set  it  to 
raising  a  crop  of  history  or  of  language.  Un- 
less the  mind  rebels  in  this  way,  however, 
mental  economy  tells  us  to  keep  right  on  with 
the  same  task  until  it  is  completed. 

"And  what  are  we  to  do  with  visitors," 
you  ask,  "  and  with  chatterers  who  interrupt, 
and  with  other  people's  purposes  that  spoil 
the  best-laid  plans  of  mice  and  men  ?  "  Why, 
endure  them  without  losing  your  temper.  \ 
Nothing  is  a  greater  interruption  to  study 


102  HOW  TO  STUDY.    ' 

than  the  loss  of  temper.  Better  for  your 
studying  that  you  lose  an  hour  than  lose  your 
temper;  better  that  your  entire  schedule  be 
put  out  of  order  than  you  out  of  spirits. 
Make  your  plans  with  spaces  between,  so  that 
when  the  hindrances  and  interferences  come, 
they  will  simply  shove  your  plans  closer  to- 
gether, and  not  crowd  any  of  them  out. 

And  yet  we  are  ourselves  responsible  for 
most  of  our  interruptions.  There  are  some  peo- 
ple who  are,  to  coin  a  word,  v^ry  "  interrupt- 
ible."  They  are  like  a  gutteiv'stream,  whose 
flexible,  meandering  nature  tempts  every  urchin 
to  put  in  sticks  to  turn  it  out  of  its  course. 
Other  people  are  like  floods  of  hot  lava,  and 
the  fiery  intensity  of  their  purpose  is  felt  and 
honored  as  soon  as  you  draw  near  them.  You 
do  not  feel  any  inclination  to  divert  them  from 
their  course,  or  even  to  approach  them,  until 
they  cool  off. 


CHAPTEK  XIX. 

MEMOKY-TKAESTING. 

DO  not  at  all  regret  a  course  in  mem- 
ory-training I  once  took.  To  be  sure, 
I  have  forgotten  all  about  the  course, 
except  that  it  was  great  fun ;  but  I 
got  this  good  from  it :  I  found  out  how  not  to 
develop  the  memory.  I  sum  up  my  discoveries 
as  follows : 

1.  Do  not  rely  on  unnatural  methods,  or 
difficult  methods,  or  artificial  methods,  of  train- 
ing the  memory. 

2.  Do  not  get  the  idea  that  the  only  appro- 
priate field  for  the  exercise  of  the  memory  is 
in  recalling  dates,  names,  and  figures. 

3.  Never  fall  into  the  error  of  supposing 
that  you  can  learn  to  remember  things  me- 
chanically, without  a  personal  interest  in  them. 

4.  Do  not  treat  the  memory  as  a  machine 
apart   from   yourself,  that   you  can  force  to 
work   quite   regardless  of  your  own  general 
spiritual  and  mental  and  physical  condition. 

5.  Do  not  believe  that  any  two  men  should 
train  their  memories  in  just  the  same  way,  any 

103 


104  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

more  than  they  should  train  their  bodies  in 
precisely  the  same  manner. 

6.  Do  not  forget  that  even  more  necessary, 
often,  than  tenacious  remembering  is  wise  for- 
getting,— learning  what  .trivialities  to  drop,  in 
order  that  the  essentials  may  be  retained. 

Those  are  some  of  the  things  I  have  found 
out  about  how  not  to  train  the  memory.  On 
the  other  hand,  theory  and  experience  together 
have  taught  me  a  few  things  about  the  mem- 
ory that  I  have  found  useful,  and  you  may  like 
to  have  them  set  down  before  you  in  black 
and  white.  Here  they  are  : 

1.  The  secret  of  memory  is  personal  inter- 
est.    You  can't  really  pay  attention  to  any 
matter  without  a  personal  interest  in  it,  and  so 
I  may  say  that  you  can  remember  anything  if 
your  attention  is  really  fixed  upon  it. 

2.  Do  something  in  connection  with  what 
you  want  to  remember,  and  you  have  estab- 
lished a  personal  interest.     That  is  why  writ- 
ing down  facts  helps  us  to  remember  them. 
That  is  why  we  remember  the  names  of  people 
who  meet  us  in  the  course  of  business  so  much 
more  readily  than  the  names  of  those  who  meet 
us  in  the  course  of  social  chat. 

3.  You  can  best  remember  things  that  you 
like.     One  way,  then,  to  cultivate  a  memory 
for  anything  is  to  cultivate  a  liking  for  it. 


MEMOE  Y-  TRAINING.  105 

4.  Anticipation  is  a  great  aid  to  memory. 
For  instance,  if  you  want  to  remember  to  take 
a  book  upstairs  the  next  time  you  go,  imagine 
yourself  walking  to  the  book,  taking  it,  carry- 
ing it   upstairs,  and  putting  it  in  its  place. 
When  the  time  comes,  you  will  be  pretty  sure 
to  carry  out  your  imaginations.     It  has  be- 
come   a   sort  of   second  nature  to  do  it,  be- 
cause you  have  done  it  once  already,  in  your 
mind. 

5.  Selection   helps  memory.     Burden  the 
memory  as  little  as  possible, — only  with  im- 
portant things,  central  things,  around  which 

V  other  things  will  naturally  cluster.  Group 
facts.  In  studying  the  Civil  War,  for  in- 
stance, all  the  events  can  be  hinged  on  half-a- 
dozen  nuclear  dates. 

6.  Combination    aids     the    memory.     Be 
shrewd  in  hitching  things  together ;  the  dates 
1776  A.  D.  and  776  B.  c.,  for  instance. 

7.  Review  helps  the  memory,  for  the  same 
reason  that  anticipation  helps  it;  it  puts  us 
into  closer  personal  relationship  with  the  fact ; 
it  gets  us  acquainted  with  it. 

8.  You  are  almost  certain  to  forget  a  thing 
if  you  think  you  are  going  to  forget  it.     The 
orator  who   has  confidence  in  himself  and  a 
good   will-power    remembers    all    his    points, 
while  the^  speaker  who  is  distrustful  of  him- 


106  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

self  forgets  his  opening  sentence  and  leading 
argument. 

9.  Another  assistant  to  the  memory  is  or- 
der. If  you  want  facts  to  come  readily  to 
your  hand,  you  must  pack  them  away  method- 
ically. Discursive  reading,  such  as  our  news- 
papers and  popular  magazines  furnish,  is  ruin- 
ous to  the  memory,  if  indulged  in  overmuch. 

Now, — to  close  with  a  practical  illustration, 
— suppose  you  wanted  to  remember  these  nine 
points  I  have  given ;  how  would  you  go  about 
it  ?  You  might  summarize  them  thus :  "  in- 
tentness,  action,  liking,  anticipation,  selection, 
combination,  review,  distrust,  order."  Notic- 
ing that  the  first  letters  of  these  words,  i,  a,  1, 
a,  s,  c,  r,  d,  and  o,  may  be  twisted  into  "  a  cord 
sail,"  you  might  try  to  remember  these  prin- 
ciples of  memory  by  remembering  "  a  cord 
sail."  That  would  be  an  example  of  how  not 
to  do  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  sensible  way  would 
be  to  group  your  principles  together  thus  :  an- 
ticipation, review  ;  intentness,  liking  ;  action, 
j  distrust ;  selection,  combination,  order.  A  lit- 
tle thought  over  the  reason  for  this  order  will 
make  it  almost  impossible  for  you  to  forget  it. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

COIN   OF   THE    REALM. 

ONCE  was  unlucky  enough  to  have 
a  sum  deposited  in  a  bank  that 
"  went  under."  My  deposits  did  not 
go  under  with  it,  however,  for  it 
was  announced  that  all  depositors  would 
eventually  be  paid,  though  they  must  wait 
some  time  and  take  their  money  in  tedious 
dividends.  My  funds  were  in  the  bank,  safe 
and  sound ;  but  for  all  the  good  they  did  me 
and  the  rest  of  the  world,  they  might  as  well 
have  been  in  Demaraland. 

That  is  the  way  it  is  with  the  knowledge  of 
a  great  many  scholars.  "I  know  it,  but  I 
cannot  tell  it,"  is  the  familiar  phrase  with 
which  every  teacher  is  all-too-well  acquainted. 

"You  never  know  what  you  cannot  tell," 
I  am  always  tempted  to  reply  vigorously. 

"  Oh,  but  I  know  it  to  myself,"  I  have  heard 
them  answer,  with  Socratic  air. 

"  No,"  I  assert  in  disgust,  "  if  you  knew  it 
to  yourself,  you  could  tell  it  to  yourself,  and 
if  you  could  tell  it  to  yourself,  you  could  tell 

107 


108  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

it  to  some  one  else.  You  doubtless  have  a 
vague  feeling  of  ownership  of  the  knowledge. 
You  are  sure  you  once  knew  the  fact,  and  you 
put  it  away  where  you  could  lay  your  hands  on 
it.  It  is  yours,  therefore,  even  though  you  have 
forgotten  just  where  you  put  it.  That  is  the 
way  you  reason,  for  all  the  world  like  my 
bank  deposit.  I  had  it — the  promise  Of  it,  and 
I  suppose  they  taxed  me  on  it ;  but  I  could 
not  pay  my  debts  with  it,  and  I  could  not  buy 
anything  with  it ;  and  when,  by  any  test,  I 
wanted  to  assure  myself  that  I  had  it,  I  found 
I  didn't  have  it.  A  fig  for  such  ownership ! 
And  a  fig  for  the  things  you  know  but  cannot 
tell!" 

Do  you  think  that  is  too  harsh  ?  It  is  the 
way  the  world  will  talk  after  you  leave  school. 

"Have  you  ever  noticed  the  resemblance 
between  ^Eschylus  and  Dante  ?  " 

"  ^Es — ^Es — why,  yes,  to  be  sure  ;  her — it — 
he — Latin  poetry  was  always  a — er,  I  mean 
Greek  prose  is — was — most  delightful ;  and  if 
you  compare  it  to  Dante — why — er,  yes,  I 
should  think  it  would." 

The  world  will  not  accept  such  a  reply  as 
evidence  of  scholarship  any  more  than  your 
old  professor  would,  and  though  you  may  re- 
member all  about  ^Eschylus  when  you  wake 
up  that  night,  and  even  recall  some  of  the 


COIN  OF  THE  REALM.  109 

scenes  of  the  Prometheus,  yet  nothing  will 
make  your  friend  believe  that  you  ever  were  a 
classical  scholar.  Non-producible  knowledge 
is  no  knowledge,  to  all  practical  purposes  of 
human  intercourse,  until  it  is  put  in  the  shape 
of  coin  of  the  realm.  When  your  Latin  and 
Greek,  your  astronomy,  your  political  economy 
and  history  and  English  literature  are  legal 
tender,  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  Cashier 
Common  Sense,  of  the  bank  of  Popular  Ee- 
gard,  honor  your  draft  upon  that  conservative 
institution.  "  I  have  the  funds,  but  I  cannot 
show  them  to  you  now  "  —just  try  him  with 
your  time-worn  excuse,  if  you  want  to  hear 
sarcasm. 

And  if — to  bring  the  matter  to  a  practical 
head — you  want  to  know  whether  your  knowl- 
edge is  producible,  produce  it.  Talk  it  out. 
A  student  is  indeed  fortunate  if  he  has  some 
one  with  whom  he  can  talk  over  his  lessons. 
The  discussions  I  used  to  wage  in  the  rooms 
of  my  fellow-students  over  all  sorts  of  ques- 
tions— granted  that  they  were  very  crude  and 
sophomoric  discussions,  yet  they  served  better 
than  a  thousand  examinations  to  fix  the  sub- 
jects in  my  mind.  If  I  were  to  go  back  to 
college  now,  I  think  I  should  organize  a  Talk- 
ing Club — a  society  where  no  papers  would 
be  read  and  no  business  would  be  conducted, 


110  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

but  the  students  would  meet  simply  to  con- 
verse about  their  lessons.  It  might  be  called 
a  Socrates  Club,  in  honor  of  the  immortal  old 
tonguester.  And  if  I  could  not  do  this — as  is 
most  likely ;  and  if  I  could  not  find  a  friend 
who  would  think  he  had  time  for  this  seem- 
ingly barren  palaver,  why,  I  should  play  every 
day  a  sort  of  intellectual  solitaire,  and  I  and 
Myself  would  debate  our  studies  together.  I 
would  doubt  this  point,  and  Myself  would  de- 
fine it ;  I  would  question  that  statement,  and 
Myself  would  join  me  in  attacking  it ;  I  would 
eulogize  that  truth,  and  Myself  would  proceed 
to  illustrate  it ;  and  so  I  would  chatter  Myself 
and  Myself  would  chatter  me  into  the  wealth 
of  learning  that  alone  can  fairly  be  called 
wealth  of  learning, — that  is,  coin  of  the  realm. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 
MY  "EVER-READY." 

AM  enjoying  a  new  contrivance  of 
the  electricians  which  is  a  genuine 
addition  to  the  comfort  of  mankind. 
It  is  called  the  "  ever-ready "  elec- 
tric light,  and  I  shall  always  owe  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  wide-awake  Dr.  William  E.  Bar- 
ton for  introducing  me  to  it. 

The  little  instrument  is  a  black,  nickle- 
mounted  tube,  about  eight  inches  long.  At 
one  end  is  a  lens,  and  as  you  press  down  a  ring 
at  the  other  end,  there  flashes  from  this  lens 
a  light  brilliant  enough  to  illuminate  objects 
across  a  large  room.  When  you  cease  to  press 
the  ring,  the  light  disappears  instantly.  It  is 
a  dry-plate  electric  battery,  which,  with  ordi- 
nary usage,  has  to  be  charged  about  four  times 
a  year. 

The  uses  to  which  we  put  this  "  ever- 
ready  "  are  many, — for  a  "  snatch-up  "  to  go 
down  cellar  or  explore  some  dark  -closet  or  re- 
mote corner  of  the  attic ;  to  see  the  watch  or 
the  clock  at  night ;  to  note  whether  the  baby 
ill 


112  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

is  covered  up  properly ;  as  a  dark  lantern  in 
campaigns  against  possible  burglars ;  to  jot 
down  that  idea  for  an  essay  which,  will  come 
about  2:45  A.  M. 

But  I  am  not  writing  an  advertisement  of 
the  "  ever-ready,"  though  I  think  that  many 
of  my  readers  will  be  glad  to  know  about  the 
useful  little  contrivance.  My  purpose  is  to 
use  this  flashlight  as  a  symbol  of  a  certain 
mental  process  that  is  very  often,  and  very 
wrongly,  treated  with  disdain.  We  call  it 
"jumping  at  conclusions,"  "surface  knowl- 
edge," "cursory  information," — that  is,  in- 
formation obtained  on  the  run. 

There  is  a  use  for  this  in  the  world,  just  as 
there  is  a  use  for  my  electric  flashlight.  It  is 
not  a  student  lamp,  I  know  well.  I  would  not 
think  of  sitting  down  with  it  to  read  McMas- 
ter's  history  of  the  United  States,  or  even  to 
write  a  letter ;  but  for  the  purpose  of  the  mo- 
ment, it  is  just  the  thing,  and  having  it  at 
hand,  it  would  be  foolish  to  light  my  student 
lamp  for  the  purpose  of  finding  the  toothache 
medicine. 

Yet  there  are  people  who  insist  on  doing 
just  that.  Under  the  specious  plea  of  thorough- 
ness, they  will  not  write  a  literary  society 
essay  qn  Don  Quixote  until  they  have  read  up 
on  all  Spanish  literature ;  they  refuse  to  teach 


MY  "EVER-READY."  113 

that  class  of  little  boys  whose  teacher  is  unex- 
pectedly absent,  because,  although  they  know 
ten  times  as  much  about  the  lesson  as  any  of 
the  little  boys,  they  have  not  had  time  to  read 
Edersheim  and  Farrar  and  the  last  number  of 
The  Sunday-School  Times  /  they  will  not  sing 
a  simple  song  before  an  uncritical  parlor  com- 
pany, because  they  have  not  yet  practiced  it 
before  Professor  Longhairsky.  So  it  is  in 
everything;  they  plead  lack  of  preparation, 
lack  of  information,  lack  of  time,  and  the 
world  can  get  little  out  of  them  because  they 
insist  on  a  degree  of  thoroughness  that  is  not 
often  practicable. 

I  believe  in  thoroughness ;  of  course  I  do. 
But  there  is  thoroughness  and  thoroughness. 
It  is  purely  a  relative  term.  The  question  is 
only  what  degree  of  thoroughness  is  appro- 
priate to  a  given  task.  One  need  prepare 
more  carefully  for  a  book  than  for  a  magazine 
article,  and  more  carefully  for  a  magazine 
article  than  for  a  newspaper  interview.  What 
would  be  unacceptable  in  an  academy  picture 
is  even  charming  in  a  sketch.  What  would 
justly  be  criticised  in  an  oration  or  a  sermon 
as  loose  and  undigested,  may  be  admirable  and 
admired  in  rapid  conversation.  The  question 
is  purely  one  of  adequacy  to  the  place  and  the 
time. 


114  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

"  But,"  it  is  argued  by  these  over-thorough 
folks,  "  if  we  are  thorough  in  everything,  we 
shall  cultivate  the  inestimable  habit  of  thor- 
oughness." 

That  is  right ;  be  thorough  in  everything. 
But  a  carpenter  is  not  in  serious  danger  of  be- 
coming careless  if  he  refuses  to  put  into  the 
clapboarding  of  a  house  the  same  finish  he 
would  lavish  on  a  rosewood  cabinet,  or  if, 
after  he  has  built  the  house,  he  chooses  a 
more  rough-and-ready  mode  of  putting  up  the 
coal-bin. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE   FINISHING   TOUCH. 

now,  having  said  what  I  have  said 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  namely, 
that  one  must  exercise  common  sense 
in  determining  the  degree  of  thor- 
oughness appropriate  to  a  given  task,  I  may 
go  on  to  a  far  more  important  plea. 

There's  a  famous  French  maxim  that  tells 
us  that  it  is  the  "first  step  that  costs."  It  is 
a  pity  that  the  proverb  does  not  finish  the 
thought  and  add,  "It  is  the  last  step  that 
pays."  The  tedious  and  difficult  first  steps, — 
in  how;  many  things  we  take  them,  paying  a 
big  price  in  money,  time  and  toil ;  and  in  how 
few  of  these  many  things  do  we  have  patience 
and  constancy  sufficient  to  finish  the  last  and 
easier  part  of  the  course,  and  receive  the  pay  1 
He  was  a  thoughtful  man  as  well  as  a  great 
artist  who  made  the  remark  that  after  the 
statue  is  finished  the  work  is  but  begun.  He 
understood  the  inestimable  value  of  the  care- 
ful finishing  touch,  which  completes  in  reality 
what  the  careless  observer  thought  already 

115 


116  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

perfect.  In  making  castings  the  metal  must 
remain  in  the  furnace  a  certain  due  length  of 
time  before  it  runs  out,  or  the  entire  operation 
is  a  failure,  and  the  entire  mass  of  metal  lost. 
An  impatient  hand  on  the  lever,  a  too  careless 
haste  to  complete  the  job,  would  waste  much 
money  and  time. 

Now  it  is  amazing  to  note  how  much  time, 
energy  and  money  are  lost  to  this  world  just 
for  the  lack  of  the  last  step,  the  last  few  min- 
utes, the  last  finishing  touches. 

Here  is  Master  Takeiteasy,  the  student.  The 
facts  of  his  lessons  are  pressed  into  his  mind 
just  hard  enough  so  that  they  stick  till  the 
recitation  is  over,  or  possibly  till  the  morrow's 
review ;  and  then  they  fall  off  like  the  leaves 
of  autumn.  He  studies  his  lesson  until  he  has 
gone  over  the  required  ground,  and  then  turns 
directly  to  some  other  work.  And  Master 
Takeiteasy  might  have  been  playing  leap-frog 
as  profitably  as  studying,  because  his  work 
cannot  be  permanent  in  its  results  without  re- 
view. Study  for  an  hour.  Review  that  study 
for  ten  minutes.  Review  that  review  for  five 
minutes,  and  you  will  have  gained  something. 
The  luckless  student  who  studies  without  im- 
mediate and  persistent  review,  is  like  the  man 
who  made  all  the  payments  on  his  life  insur- 
ance policy  but  the  last,  and  so  lost  the  whole. 


THE  FINISHING   TOUCH.  117 

It  is  passing  strange  that  students  will  day 
after  day  spend  their  time  taking  these  first 
steps,  costly  and  tedious,  without  a  moment's 
thought  of  the  last  steps  which  make  the  goal 
their  own.  I  beseech  you,  the  next  time  a 
lesson  is  on  the  coals,  remember  the  man  at 
the  furnace,  and  do  not  press  the  lever  for  a 
casting — a  casting  of  the  book  aside,  you  un- 
derstand ! — until  you  have  carried  the  process 
beyond  the  possibility  of  loss. 

Then  how  many  books  we  read,  straightway 
to  forget,  thus  all  but  wasting  the  time  we 
spent  upon  them !  We  have  not  given  to  our 
reading  the  last  payment,  the  hour  or  two  of 
thought,  of  review,  possibly  of  extracts  and 
note-taking,  which  would  have  transformed 
the  work  of  many  hours  into  permanent  re- 
sults. So  it  is  with  many  studies.  Suppose 
that  you  have  gained,  with  pains,  a  smatter- 
ing of  Latin.  The  first  steps  have  been  diffi- 
cult, the  work  tedious,  and  O,  how  many  cry 
halt  on  Latin  just  as  Latin  scholarship  is  within 
their  grasp,  with  all  its  inestimable  advantages 
and  pleasures  !  It  is  very  much  as  if  a  small 
boy  should  see  a  fine  apple  on  a  distant  limb. 
He  climbs  the  tree  painfully.  The  trunk  is 
awkward.  The  limbs  are  roughly  barked,  and 
sway  unsteadily ;  nevertheless,  the  apple  is  at 
last  within  reach  of  his  hand.  But  the  mem- 


118  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

ory  of  the  toilsome  ascent  is  too  much  for 
him.  No  fruit  can  be  worth  anything  that  is 
so  hard  to  get.  So  the  small  boy  drops  dis- 
gusted to  the  ground  without  the  apple.  You 
say  you  believe  that  this  is  a  slander  on  the 
small  boy?  It  is  a  slander.  It  is  only  an 
illustration  of  the  way  some  big  boys  of  my 
acquaintance — and  girls  too — have  climbed  the 
tree  of  science  after  the  apple  of  knowledge. 

Are  not  examples  of  this  mistake  to  be  found 
at  every  meeting  of  your  literary  societies? 
You  know  what  is  meant  by  a  "  finished  "  style, 
a  "  polished  "  style.  How  many  of  you,  after 
you  have  written  your  essays,  proceed  to  finish 
them,  to  polish  them  ?  A  cultivated  writer  is 
known  not  merely  by  his  thoughts,  but  by  a 
certain  elegance  of  diction  and  ease  of  literary 
manner.  This  grace  is  to  be  obtained  only  by 
the  nicest  revision,  by  scrupulous  watch  over 
adjectives  and  verbs,  subjects  and  objects,  met- 
aphors and  similes,  by  fastidious  rearrange- 
ment of  awkward  sentences,  and  even  by  anx- 
ious attention  to  all  details  of  punctuation, 
capitalization,  spelling,  and  paragraphing.  Be 
the  thoughts  equally  good,  before  this  process 
it  was  but  a  schoolboy  composition.  Now  it 
is  literature.  Here  as  elsewhere  it's  the  first 
step  that  costs,  it's  the  last  step  that  pays. 

You  can  apply  the  principle  in  a  hundred 


THE  FINISHING   TOUCH.  119 

directions.  I  must  speak  of  one  that  has  a 
more  direct  connection  with  your  studying 
than  you  may  think  at  first.  Here  is  a  young 
man  who  has  an  interest  in  religious  matters. 
That  is,  he  reads  the  controversial  articles  in 
The  Forum  or  North  American  Review,  he 
hears  a  sermon  Sunday,  possibly  belongs  to  a 
Sunday-school  class  in  a  sort  of  feeble  manner, 
and  listens  respectfully  while  others  talk  and 
pray  at  prayer  meeting.  He  calls  himself  a 
Christian,  and  yet — and  yet  - 

Have  you  ever  seen  carpenters  drive  nails 
where  a  great  strain  is  to  come,  and  do  you 
know  how  they  sometimes  put  the  matter  be- 
yond doubt  ?  They  clinch  the  nails.  I  think 
that  it  would  be  a  tremendously  good  thing 
for  almost  everybody's  religion,  to  clinch  the 
hearing  of  preacher  and  Sunday-school  teacher 
by  earnest  study  of  one's  own  Bible  and  ekr- 
nest  praying  in  one's  own  closet ;  to  clinch  the 
prayer  meeting  by  adding  one's  own  little 
mite  of  endeavor  ;  to  clinch  the  articles  in  The 
Forum  or  North  American  Review  by  a  vast 
deal  of  vigorous,  practical,  all-alive  Christian- 
ity,— Christianity  not  on  paper,  or  daubed 
with  printer's  ink,  but  written  in  warm  scarlet 
on  the  grateful  heart-tablets  of  our  brothers 
and  sisters  who  need  us. 

Let  us  resolve  in  our  school  work  to  live 


120  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

completer  lives  ;  to  begin  fewer  things  if  need 
be,  but  to  finish  more  and  better  things ;  to 
be  more  patient  and  determined;  that  the 
Master  may  say  of  our  work,  some  happy  day 
.to  come,  "  Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful 
servant ! " 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 

THE   CLUE   IN   THE   LABYRINTH. 

HAVE  been  indulging  lately  in  the 
exhilarating  sport  of  bowling,  and 
though  I  cannot  yet  get  much  above 
one  hundred  by  the  end  of  the 
"  string,"  yet  I  have  learned  a  thing  or  two 
about  the  manly  game  which  I  am  very  glad 
to  know. 

One  of  these  important  discoveries  of  mine 
is  this :  that  in  rolling  a  ball  at  the  pins,  direc- 
tion is  of  far  more  importance  than  velocity. 
Dr.  X  was  bowling  with  me  the  other  night. 
He  had  the  rheumatism  in  his  feet,  and  could 
scarcely  hobble.  He  had  to  stand  still  and 
roll  his  balls.  They  ambled  gently  down  the 
alley,  sounding  like  a  leisurely  freight  train, 
but  they  went  straight  for  the  middle  pin,  and 
generally  the  whole  set  of  them  went  tumbling 
head  over  heels. 

On  the  next  alley,  young  Michael  Muscle 
was  bowling,  and  I  watched  him  with  envy. 
He  would  give  a  swift  run,  and  with  graceful 
delivery  would  fire  a  ball  down  the  shining 

121 


122  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

boards  as  if  from  a  nine-inch  gun.  But  his 
balls  were  actually  too  swift.  They  were 
often  "  thin  " ;  that  is,  they  would  flash  their 
way  clean  through  the  pins,  disturbing  only  a 
few  of  them,  just  as  a  bullet  will  make  a  smooth, 
round  hole  in  a  windowpane,  while  a  stone 
thrown  by  an  urchin  will  smash  it  to  frag- 
ments. 

It  all  set  me  to  thinking  about  the  slow, 
steady,  easy-going  boys  I  have  known,  who 
have  made  no  fuss  and  won  no  particular  ap- 
plause ;  but  they  have  known  just  what  they 
wanted  to  accomplish,  and  just  how  it  was 
to  be  done,  and  now  quite  without  exception 
they  are  university  professors,  or  heads  of 
mercantile  establishments,  or  Congressmen,  or 
at  the  top  of  some  other  heap.  In  the  mean- 
time, in  many  a  case  the  youngster  who  made 
a  great  stir  in  school  and  college,  who  sparkled 
and  shone,  who  carried  off  all  the  prizes  and 
beat  all  the  games  and  held  all  the  positions 
of  honor,  settled  down  into  a  very  subordinate 
position,  or  slipped  out  of  sight  altogether.  It 
was  because  these  fellows  lacked  a  clear,  def- 
inite, steady  aim.  They  plunged  through  their ' 
work  for  the  moment,  but  they  had  no  thought 
beyond  the  moment.  They  were  rockets,  bril- 
liant and  beautiful;  they  came  down — sticks. 
I  -shall  think  of  all  this  the  next  time  I  am 


THE  CLUE  IN  THE  LABYRINTH.  123 

fortunate  enough  to  have  a  touch  of  rheuma- 
tism, and  I  shall  go  to  the  bowling-alley,  and 
I  shall  make  the  record  of  the  evening. 

I  don't  blame  the  students  in  our  high  schools 
and  colleges  for  growing  perplexed  and  con- 
founded with  the  multitude  of  studies  they 
must  cram  into  their  heads.  The  Latin  clashes 
with  the  French,  and  the  Greek  with  the  Ger- 
man, trigonometry  bumps  up  against  Ameri- 
can history,  and  geology  smashes  psychology. 
By  the  time  they  are  through  with  it  all,  poor 
•things,  it  is  a  wonder  that  they  know  whether 
the  binomial  theorem  is  in  the  major  premise 
or  the  Silurian  age.  In  the  course  of  my  peda- 
gogical experience  I  have  had  to  teach  pretty 
much  everything,  from  Greek  to  arithmetic, 
from  astronomy  to  shorthand,  from  zoology 
and  geology  to  French  and  algebra  and  modern 
history.  That  is  why  I  speak  so  feelingly 
about  the  brain-packing  required  nowadays 
from  teacher  and  scholar. 

I  want  to  tell  you  a  little  story. 

Once  I  had  in  one  of  my  classes — it  chanced 
to  be  a  class  in  higher  astronomy — a  young  man 
who  saw  no  sense  in  the  study.  He  did  not 
like  it  a  bit.  The  strange  secrets  of  the  stars, 
the  mysteries  of  the  moon,  the  fascination  of 
the  spectrum,  the  tricks  of  the  sun-spots,  the 
beauty  of  the  planets'  ordered  march, — all 


124  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

these  were  lost  upon  him.  He  was  a  very 
practical  young  man,  and  it  was  too  far  away 
from  earth  for  him.  So  he  failed  on  exami- 
nation, as  I  knew  he  would,  and  I  had  to  give 
him  extra  work  to  do  in  the  summer. 

Well,  the  young  man  somehow  took  it  into 
his  head  during  that  summer's  study  to  hitch 
his  Astronomy  on  to  his  life  work ;  he  was  in- 
tending to  study  law.  With  every  chapter  he 
asked  himself,  "  How  could  I  use  this  to  illus- 
trate a  case  ?  What  turn  could  I  make  upon 
that  fact  before  a  jury?"  As  soon  as  this 
idea  entered  his  head,  his  studies  made  prodi- 
gious strides,  he  speedily  passed  with  credit, 
and  he  wrote  on  the  back  of  his  last  examina- 
tion-paper, "  This  is  the  most  interesting  study 
I  ever  took  up."  I  have  that  paper  yet. 

You  remember  how  Ariadne  piloted  Theseus 
through  the  Cretan  labyrinth  with  her  mystic 
thread.  Well,  this  thought  which  my  astro- 
nomical student  hit  upon  is  the  clue  that  will 
bring  you  safely  to  the  heart  even  of  our 
modern  educational  maze,  enable  you  to  kill 
the  minotaur  and  get  safely  out  again,  and 
laugh  at  Minos.  I  have  slight  sympathy  with 
the  views  of  those  who  advise  young  men  to 
postpone  as  long  as  possible  their  choice  of  a 
life  work.  "Wait,"  they  say,  "till  you  have 
gone  through  college  and  viewed  the  world  of 


THE  CLUE  IN  THE  LABYRINTH.  125 

knowledge  from  all  sides.  You  cannot  wisely 
choose  your  calling  before  that,  for  you  do 
not  before  that  know  either  the  world  or  your- 
self." Fortunate,  indeed,  would  be  the  col- 
lege senior  that  knew  either  the  world  or  him- 
self !  If  the  sixteen  years  before  college  have 
not  shown  him  something  he  would  like  to  do, 
there  is  small  chance  that  the  four  years  of 
college  will  do  that  for  him. 

I  am  foolish  enough  to  believe  that  God 
calls  men  and  women  to  be  farmers  and  musi- 
cians and  doctors  and  editors  and  milliners  as 
well  as  to  be  ministers  and  missionaries ;  that 
from  the  very  start  he  began  to  fit  them  for 
their  life  work,  and  that  it  is  possible  for  a 
wise  parent  and  wise  teacher,  and  above  all 
for  the  wise  youngster  himself,  to  discover 
what  God  put  him  in  the  world  for.  To  that 
centre  all  his  interests  should  turn.  Upon 
that  he  should  hang  all  his  studies.  That  will 
give  his  school  life  a  significance  it  otherwise 
could  not  possibly  gain.  That  will  make  his 
attention  sharp,  his  memory  tenacious,  his 
perseverance  virile.  That  will  lead  him  to  the 
bull,  and  take  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and  win 
him  the  triumph. 

I  have  seen  young  men  not  a  few,  who,  mis- 
led by  foolish  theorists,  postponed  their  life 
decisions  as  long  as  possible,  dilly-dallied  with 


126  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

all  their  studies,  guessed  their  way  through 
college,  adopted  a  new  profession  or  business 
every  month  of  their  senior  year,  took  up  at 
lust,  in  sheer  inability  to  choose,  some  prepos- 
terous calling  selected  for  them  by  their  par- 
ents, and  went  straight  to  the  limbo  of  the  in- 
competent. The  course  I  advise  may  lead  to 
mistakes,  but  the  other  course  is  sure  to,  and 
the  mistakes  that  result  from  a  bold  front  and 
a  prompt  and  manly  choice  are  the  most  easily 
remedied  of  mistakes.  Your  experience  may 
be  like  mine.  With  an  innate  longing  for 
literary  work,  I  spent  my  school  and  college 
days,  so  far  as  I  could,  in  scribbling,  and 
speared  upon  a  steel  pen  everything  I  learned. 
Well,  for  nine  years  after  I  left  college  I  had 
to  teach.  No  editor's  office  seemed  to  be 
vacant.  But  behold,  at  the  end  of  the  ninth 
year  I  was  popped  right  into  the  most  delight- 
ful editorial  chair  in  all  the  world,  and  every- 

;  thing  I  had  crammed  into  my  head  while 
I  was  teaching  was  pulled  out  again  by  my 

[  printer's  devil  in  three  months,  and  I  wished 
it  was  ten  times  as  much.  That  is  the  way  it 
will  be  with  you.  Choose  your  calling,  pre- 
pare for  it,  take  the  first  honest  work  that 
offers  itself,  and — bide  your  time. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

WHY   ARE   YOU   STUDYING  ? 

"  T  is  not  enough  to  know  how  to  study  ; 
that  we  have  been  trying  to  learn. 
Nor  to  know  what  to  study — the 
subject  treated  in  the  last  chapter. 
But  we  must  also  know  why  we  study ;  and 
the  purpose  must  be  an  adequate  one,  or  the 
study  will  be  poor  study  and  finally  no  study 
at  all. 

The  "why,"  too,  must  come  before  the 
"how."  Unless  you  have  the  right  impulsion 
toward  study,  you  are  certain  not  to  study  in 
the  right  way.  Why,  then,  do  I  make  this 
the  last  rather  than  the  first  chapter  of  this 
book  ?  Because  the  truths  I  shall  here  express 
are  so  important  that  I  want  them  to  leave 
the  final  impression  on  your  mind. 

What  is  the  good  of  a  goal  ?  Usually  it  is 
nothing  that  can  be  carried  away.  It  is 
nothing  to  eat,  or  wear,  or  exhibit  in  the  par- 
lor. It  is  a  rude  stone  pillar,  or  a  wooden 
post,  or  sometimes  only  a  hole  in  the  ground. 
Yet  the  goal  is  the  cynosure  of  every  race,  the 

127 


J 


128  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

life  of  every  contest,  the  inspiration  of  every 
game,  and,  taken  broadly  throughout  life,  it  is 
the  incentive  to  every  achievement  worthy  the 
name.  A  man  without  a  goal — that  is,  a  man 
without  a  clearly  seen,  definite,  single  end  to- 
ward which  all  his  energies  are  directed  and 
upon  which  his  longings  centre,  may  have  all 
possible  aids  to  success  except  that  one  aid, 
may  have  good  birth,  brains,  influence,  money, 
address,  ambition ;  but  he  can  never  have  suc- 
cess. You  may  have  seen  some  unfortunate 
man  whose  nerves  and  muscles  flew  in  all  di- 
rections without  his  control,  hands,  arms,  legs, 
head  twitching  and  jerking  around,  each  as  if 
it  belonged  to  a  different  man.  It  is  because 
something  is  lacking  or  wrong  with  an  inch  or 
two  of  corrugations  in  the  brain  where  lies  the 
co-ordinating  power,  the  power  that  unifies  the 
nerves  and  muscles  and  focuses  this  wonderful 
body  of  ours  upon  single  movements  and  deeds. 
A  life  without  a  goal  is  a  life  with  the  rickets. 

So  necessary  is  this  aim  to  any  success,  even 
to  the  initial  successes,  that  I  should  like  to 
have  it  recognized  in  the  entrance  examina- 
tions at  every  college.  The  president  himself 
should  conduct  this  examination. 

"Why  are  you  going  to  study,  you  man 
with  the  bicycle  face  and  the  baseball  fingers 
and  the  football  hair  ?  " 


WHY  ARE   YOU  STUDYING?  129 

"I  shall  study,  sir" — for  in  some  way 
honesty  is  to  be  made  compulsory  in  this  ex- 
amination— "  in  order  to  get  an  opportunity 
to  play." 

"  Why  will  you  study,  you  youngster  with 
the  Demosthenic  brow,  the  Napoleonic  nose, 
the  Washingtonian  chin,  and  the  Paderevvski 
hair?" 

."  Because,  sir,  I  want  to  be  great.  I  have 
in  me,  sir,  the  making  of  a  distinguished  poet, 
or  inventor,  or  general,  or  musician.  I  have 
not  yet  decided  which." 

"And  why  are  you  studying,  you  pale- 
faced,  blear-eyed,  stoop-shouldered,  bookworm 
fellow  ?  " 

"  Because  I  have  insatiable  curiosity.  I  want 
to  know  things.  I  like  to  dig  into  mysteries. 
I  am  passionately  fond  of  books,  sir.  Why, 
sir,  I'd  rather  read  a  book  than  do  any- 
thing." 

"  You  look  it.  And  why  are  you  here,  my 
jolly  boy,  you  good-natured  chap  ?  " 

"Oh,  because  it  is  the  thing  to  do,  you 
know.  It  is  what  is  expected  of  me.  My 
parents  sent  me,  and  my  friends  want  me  to 
study,  and  all  the  other  fellows  are  in  college, 
so  here  I  am." 

"And  now  you,  my  earnest-eyed,  bright- 
faced  lad?  I  can  see  that  you  have  good 


130  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

stuff  in  you.  What  is  your  purpose  in  the 
student  life  ?  " 

But  the  answer  of  the  true  scholar  must  be 
deferred  for  a  minute. 

For,  first,  I  want  to  say  with  regard  to  all 
the  false  motives  I  have  indicated,  and  others 
that  might  have  been  named,  that  no  purpose 
in  study  is  the  true  one  unless  it  can  stand  the 
test  of  eternity.  This  is  the  case  with  every 
act  of  our  lives,  so  of  course  it  is  the  case  with 
an  act  so  important  as  the  undertaking  of  a 
college  course,  or  a  course  in  any  school.  And 
before  the  test  of  eternity  how  pitiful  all  these 
motives  are  !  After  a  few  brief  years  of  phys- 
ical vigor  paralyzed  by  an  empty  head,  the 
athlete  sees  his  muscles  themselves  becoming 
flabby  with  age,  and  finally  some  day  slipping 
off  from  him,  together  with  the  rest  of  his  out- 
grown body.  A  mere  flash  of  time,  and  the 
bookworm  finds  himself  in  the  country  where 
all  earth's  clumsy  languages  are  quite  forgot- 
ten, where  the  most  abstruse  science  lies  open 
to  the  eye  of  any  child,  where  all  the  history  of 
earth's  sad  wars  and  feeble  dynasties  is  gladly 
lost  in  the  history  of  heaven.  Only  an  eddy- 
ing whirl  in  the  current  of  time,  and  the  studies 
which  served  as  stepping-stones  to  the  attain- 
ment of  some  lofty  ambition  are  quite  forgot- 
ten, like  all  other  stepping-stones,  the  ambition 


WHY  ARE   YOU  STUDYING?  131 

being  attained ;  and  only  another  eddy,  and 
the  ambition  itself  is  swallowed  up  in  the 
black  wave  of  death. 

Young  Pliable's  case  is  the  commonest,  and 
the  world  is  full  of  these  fortuitous  students 
who  study  because  of  a  force  from  without— 
the  force  of  their  parents'  desire,  or  the  mere 
push  of  others'  opinion — and  not  from  a  force 
within,  and  so  graduate  into  lives  that  have 
no  permanent  mental  interests  or  resources, 
utterly  at  the  mercy,  if  it  is  a  girl,  of  a  luckless 
love-affair  and  a  dull  or  selfish  husband,  or, 
if  it  is  a  boy,  utterly  at  the  mercy  of  busi- 
ness fortune.  They  have  built  up  for  them- 
selves no  bright  refuge  in  books  against  the 
dark  days,  the  days  of  sickness,  of  loneliness, 
of  sorrow  and  loss.  Such  lives  have  "  no  root 
in  themselves,"  and  how  speedily  they  wither 
away ! 

But  there  is  one  purpose  in  studying,  and 
only  one,  which  is  adequate,  powerful,  eternal. 
It  is  to  get  into  harmony  with  God. 

Now  you  think  that  I  am  preaching.  That 
may  be,  but  it  is  very  practical  preaching,  I  as- 
sure you.  Keeley,  that  scatter-brained,  tricky 
inventor,  with  his  motor  that  never  would 
"mote,"  was  nevertheless  in  the  right  with 
his  main  contention  that  in  the  little-under- 
stood laws  of  harmony  lies  the  key  to  the 


132  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

secrets  of  the  universe,  that  all  power  is 
wrapped  up  in  them,  and  all  possibilities  of 
progress.  The  magic  of  sympathetic  vibra- 
tions upon  which  he  based  his  alleged  dis- 
coveries still  remains  a  mystery  so  far  as  its 
practical  application  is  concerned,  but  whether 
those  laws  shall  yet  lend  us  their  mighty  aid 
for  the  propulsion  of  this  world's  machinery, 
still  they  are  the  recognized  source  of  efficiency 
in  all  things  higher.  The  machine  itself  must 
be  in  harmony  with  the  mind  of  the  inventor, 
or  it  will  not  work.  The  instruments  of  the 
orchestra  must  be  in  tune  with  one  another, 
and  all  must  be  obedient  to  the  baton  of  the 
director,  or  there  is  no  music.  The  army  must 
move  as  a  single  man  at  the  will  of  the  gen- 
eral, or  there  is  no  victory.  And  in  the  same 
way  and  for  the  same  reason  the  student's 
chief  end  is  to  get  into  harmony  with  his 
Creator. 

All  knowledge  falls  into  line  subordinate  to 
this  high  purpose.  To  get  in  harmony  with 
God,  we  must  know  about  God, — that  is  the- 
ology, which  every  student  should  in  some 
form  study;  and  about  his  works,  that  is 
science ;  about  ourselves,  that  is  history  and 
psychology  and  logic ;  and  about  the  work 
God  has  set  us  to  do  in  the  world,  that  is 
technical  training.  This  purpose  meets  the 


WILY  ARE   YOU  STUDYING?  133 

test  of  eternity,  because  if  we  study  to  get  in 
harmony  with  God,  we  shall  discover  beneath 
all  the  temporary  elements  of  our  studies  a 
science  that  lasts  forever.  The  stars  may  fade, 
but  space  endures ;  the  earth  may  crumble, 
but  geologic  time  runs  on ;  plants  and  animals 
may  pass  away,  but  God  has  proved  himself 
to  be  a  lover  of  creation  infinite  in  marvelous 
surprises,  and  whoever  comes  close  to  His 
mind  in  this  beautiful  specimen  world  will 
not  be  far  from  it  in  any  world. 

Nor  does  this  overmastering  purpose  to  get 
in  harmony  with  God  exclude  the  lower  aims 
of  the  student  whenever  they  are  worthy, 
such  as  interest  in  science  for  the  mere  sake  of 
knowing,  or  to  prepare  one  for  a  business 
career.  Not  at  all.  Rather  does  it  strengthen 
and  deepen  all  such  interests,  adding  to  all 
that  is  legitimate  in  them  the  intensity  of  a 
heaven-descended  momentum,  while  the  sense 
of  eternal  proportion  we  gain  keeps  us  from 
that  one-sided  view  into  which  students  so 
easily  fall,  and  prevents  us  from  "running 
anything  into  the  ground,"  devoting  our  lives 
to  the  dative  case,  or  being  swallowed  up  by 
some  tumble-bug.  No  one  can  live  long  in 
harmony  with  this  purpose  without  coming  to 
see  that  there  is  nothing  ennobling  in  facts 
any  more  than  in  pig  iron ;  that  the  one  de- 


134  HOW  TO  STUDY. 

cisive  question  is  the  use  that  is  to  be  made  of 
the  facts. 

To  learn  God's  will,  and  then  to  do  it !  That 
ultimate  aim  of  the  student  includes  within  it 
everything  that  has  been  said  in  this  book 
about  the  methods  of  wise  studying.  It  bars 
out  all  forms  of  cheating  and  insincerity.  It 
keeps  the  student's  body  pure  and  strong  and 
free  from  all  hindering  excesses.  It  frees  one 
from  crippling  slavery  to  per  cents.  It  pro- 
motes attention  and  enforces  concentration  of 
mind.  Pallid  ambition,  with  its  boastful  strut 
or  its  trembling  fear  of  failure,  is  displaced  by 
a  serene  confidence  that  walks  hand  in  hand! 
with  the  one  great  Teacher  of  men  and  angels, 
in  whose  presence  comes  that  calm  evenness 
of  temper  which  is  for  the  scholar  at  the  same 
time  a  priceless  delight  and  an  achieving 
power. 

Once  there  was  a  great  painter  who  had 
three  pupils.  The  first  spent  all  the  time  in 
the  studio  at  his  easel.  He  copied  incessantly 
the  great  master's  pictures,  studying  deeply 
into  their  beauties,  and  trying  to  imitate  them 
with  his  own  brush.  He  was  up  early,  and 
was  the  last  to  leave  the  workroom  at  night. 
He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  master 
himself,  attended  none  of  his  lectures,  never 
went  to  him  with  any  question,  nor  spent  any 


WHY  ARE   YOU  STUDYING?  135 

time  in  talking  with  him.  He  wanted  to  be 
his  own  director,  and  hit  upon  his  own  discov- 
eries, and  be  self-made.  This  pupil  lived  and 
died  without  notice,  and  never  expressed  on 
canvas  a  single  one  of  the  noble  characteristics 
of  his  master. 

The  second  pupil,  on  the  contrary,  spent  lit- 
tle time  in  the  studio,  scarcely  soiled  his  palette, 
or  wore  out  a  brush.  He  attended  every  lecture 
on  art,  was  constantly  asking  questions  about 
the  theories  of  perspective,  of  coloring,  of  light 
and  shade,  of  grouping  figures,  and  all  that, 
and  was  a  zealous  student  of 'books.  But  for 
all  his  study,  he  died  without  producing  a 
single  worthy  picture  to  help  and  delight 
mankind  and  perpetuate  his  master's  glory. 

The  third  was  as  zealous  in  the  practical 
work  of  the  artist  as  the  first,  and  as  zealous 
in  the  theoretical  as  the  second,  but  he  did 
one  thing  which  they  never  thought  of  doing : 
he  came  to  know  and  love  the  master.  They 
were  much  together,  the  young  artist  and  the 
older  one,  and  they  had  long  talks  about  all 
phases  of  an  artist's  life  and  work.  So  close 
and  continual,  in  fact,  was  their  communion, 
that  they  grew  to  talk  alike,  and  think  alike, 
and  even,  some  said,  to  look  alike.  And  it 
was  not  long  before  they  began  to  paint  alike, 
and  on  the  canvas  of  the  younger  glowed  the 


136  HOW  TO   STUDY. 

same  beauty  and  the  same1  majesty  that  shone 
from  the  canvas  of  his  master. 

And  oh,  my  students,  who  have  come  with 
me  to  the  last  page  of  this  little  book,  doubt- 
less you  have  some  purpose  in  your  studying, 
or  you  would  not  care  to  be  reading  this  book 
at  all ;  but  which  of  these  three  purposes  is 
it  ?  Do  the  practical  ends  of  life  absorb  you  ? 
Are  you  engrossed  in  books,  in  the  vague  ab- 
stractions of  theory  ?  Or,  without  omitting 
from  your  lives  whatever  is  noble  in  these, 
have  you  chosen  the  better  part,  the  higher 
purpose  which  shall  never  be  taken  from  you  ? 


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SEP  29  1933 

^NOV60\T~ 

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JflJ*         o       I"OD 

AUG  ,89  1936 

AU  •  181P 

SEP     1  1936 

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; 

JUN  10  1940 

JUAf  24  j  Wfl 

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JUL     7   1041 

VVJL.           f         I^Trl 

LD  21-100m-7,'33 

YB  04762 


